#1
After a few years, some hotshot young manager fired him. The reasons were long and stupid, but it boiled down to, "I don't like his attitude." Instead of saying, "HAH, you can't fire me!" He said, "okay," and filed a registration statement to sell his shares. I don't know how much he made, but it was more than $90 million. It was his right.
The board was forced to approve it, he paid taxes, and retired in his 40s. The company stock price fell about 15% that week. That manager was fired. Presumably out of a cannon.
#2
#3
Gave notice after accepting a new position with a 60% pay increase and the company immediately countered with an 80% pay rise offer. That they knew his worth the entire time and refused to pay until they had to enraged him so much that they turned an amicable separation into a hostile one.
He came after their clients with a vengeance and while I think the company still exists it's a lot smaller than before.
As you go through the list, you might even find that some are quite familiar. It's a small world after all, and these things keep happening. To gain deeper insights into the issue, Bored Panda got in touch with HR specialist Nicola Dias. She openly spoke with us about how she has seen this play out right in front of her.
"The number of times that I have seen companies let go of good, resourceful employees is quite staggering. And the fact that there's nothing that I can do about it makes it sadder. They love to lean on that one person who knows how everything works… until they walk out the door. The truth is, a lot of organizations confuse ‘quietly holding everything together’ with ‘not doing anything special.’"
"These people don’t get raises, they get more work. They don’t get backup; rather, they become the backup. But when they leave, it’s not just a talent loss, it’s like ripping out the brainstem of a system. The company ends up paying the price they refused to pay in appreciation, retention bonuses, or even just respect," she added.
#4
#5
#6
The company is shutting down after this year.
It turns out people with 10+ years in the industry are basically non-existent. No one remembers to take care of their bodies. And when you offer s**t pay to start, you'll get s**t help. They simply could not replace me, and they couldn't afford my new self-imposed salary to get me back on board.
Part of me feels guilty to watch them struggle but man has my life improved since leaving.
The moral of the story is that if your company relies on a single person to operate, you're probably doing something wrong.
Nicola also explained how some workplaces tend to punish employees for being too competent, by overloading them or undervaluing their contributions.
She further elaborated, "In some companies, competence is basically a punishment. You’re fast? Great, here are three more projects. You solve problems no one else can? Awesome, you’re now the unofficial fixer of everything broken, with zero authority and even less sleep. And the toxic cycle just never ends."
She claimed that these employees don’t get promoted; rather, they get depended on even more. Meanwhile, she added, a boss might say, ‘We can’t afford to lose her/him,’ while doing nothing to actually make them want to stay.
#7
Ended up talking to the owner of the biggest manufacturer of the caps I need in America. Turns out.... they're completely shut down. There's 1 guy in Slovakia that can fix and service their machine. He can't travel because of covid.
I asked, with a mildly condescending tone, is there a manual? Or can you face time with this guy? Stonewalled. He's the only guy and we're waiting for him.
Luckily he didn't die and came to America to fix the machine 8 weeks later.
#8
Corporate removed the GM of his branch, and he got a bad feeling from the new guy. So he left and they lost that main customer within 6 months. The branch closed down less than a year after that.
#9
New management came in and they were reviewing payments to outside labor and contracts and such. They found one such payment, annually paid to a fella out west. The payment was $20k a year.
They asked the wrong people and decided this was not necessary and cancelled the payments and retainer.
Apparently this guy was some expert code writer for a system long out of use, but very much in use by my company. Kind of like those memes you see in the IT world showing how all of this critical infrastructure relies on some small antiquated software no one knows about.
IT found out later, they were never asked or involved in the decision. They basically said without this dude we are f****d.
Management cut the check and he’s on retainer .
Our expert also stressed how this over-reliance on a single employee can actually be like a slow-burning nightmare for the person to handle. She chimed in that these folks are in a constant state of hyper-responsibility, even when they’re off the clock. Nicola believes that over time, it leads to anxiety, resentment, and full-on burnout.
"They start feeling like they can’t take time off, not because they don’t want to, but because the place might actually fall apart without them. Imagine being so indispensable that even your PTO feels like a liability. Eventually, the stress can push them to leave. And the worst part? Half the time, nobody even notices the toll it’s taking until it’s way too late," she noted.
#10
#11
They fired him immediately after the ink was dry on a trumped up b******t "not a team player" thing to s***w him out of their paying his percentage for the sale.
Company never found another big client after that, and 6 months later the layoffs started.
#12
Then 3 months later he was finally fired and the company stock took an 80% nosedive and has only recovered about 20% still.
But I'm at my new job crushing quota year after year so I look back and smile at that piece of s**t.
Wait, what was the question?
"I’ve seen employees beg to train others, flag the risk, even suggest building documentation. Only to get brushed off with a pat on the back and, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’ll get to that.’ Spoiler alert: they don't," Nicola sarcastically commented.
She believes that a lot of organizations have this dangerous optimism: ‘They’ve always handled it, so they’ll keep handling it.’ She narrated that when those employees finally leave, leadership suddenly scrambles as if it’s a surprise. "Meanwhile, that person had been waving a red flag for months. It’s not just unsupported, it’s ignored until it becomes a crisis," she added.
#13
#14
Not sure really what the skill is. She's hyper organised and observant. So she catches discrepancies and errors in things before they go to the next stage that other people miss. She's always very good at logistics, so she keeps things together and keeps the workplace moving.
These skills are great but she can't turn them off. So she comments on basically every single thing I do at home. We visited her family once and after a day of them all doing it I needed some time to myself.
That's ADHD for ya.
#15
I have no idea if they gave up on making them as we switched to a different type after that. Maybe it was just a tall tale.
"Sometimes people do hold onto knowledge for job security, sure. But more often, it’s self-preservation. If documenting everything means doubling your workload and training someone who might leave in 6 months, a lot of folks just think, ‘Why bother?’ It’s not selfish, it’s a symptom. Of broken systems, of under-resourcing, and of being constantly in survival mode,” Nicola concluded.
Well, that definitely gave us all the tea that happens within such big organizations. It's no wonder some people are reluctant to share their knowledge with others. If the management is so toxic, you can't really expect much from the employees. Don't you agree? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
Also, feel free to share any similar experiences that you have come across. We always love to hear from you!
#16
He retired twice and stayed on as a consultant until the day he died. They called my grandma after he died and when she told them he had passed she said they seemed more broken up about it than she was after 40 years of marriage.
#17
The people they successively brought in slashed and burned everything that made the place great. Got so bad we were forbidden from sending company wide goodbye emails which were par the course in the past. They try to reverse course on some stuff to stem the tide but damage was done. Also all the changes in leadership meant the product strategy was nonexistent and something that was the new flagship one year was deprecated the next. They are still plugging along but a shell of what they onfe were. Many, many people who made the place great saw the writing on the wall and got out of dodge.
#18
My supervisor was not only our sole back-end dev, but also the responsible for managing client lists, our monthly phone messages to clients, and the entire server that housed all files.
As soon as he left I was just going to work without anything to do, and soon after the agency fell through.
#19
#20
