Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikewarot | Hacker News Reader

If you're that concerned, give them a generous severance package, contingent on their cooperation.

I was the solo IT guy for a marketing company for 15 years. They always treated me fairly, but as time went on, there was less and less work. They outsourced the job, and gave me a 3 month severance, with health insurance (like I was still working), contingent on my cooperation with the consultants they retained to replace me.

There were no hard feelings at all. From time to time for a decade I got the odd call with questions, and was glad to help as much as I could.

View on HN

I had a very similar experience. The CEO and I had some major drift in what we wanted from the product and company (I thought we were doing slightly unethical stuff), so we had to part ways. He was honest about it, I was honest about it, he gave me an awesome severance package and I rode off into the sunset without giving any trouble about it. My team was a bit gutted, in part because it was so unexpected and they were worried about their own jobs, but it smoothed over fairly quickly and easily.

I fielded questions for my team for 5 years or so. That was awesome. I felt like I had a little legacy there! I didn’t get paid, but the extent of my help was a short call, response to an email, a slack message, etc. I was happy to help. I really liked the people I worked with.

> They outsourced the job, and gave me a 3 month severance, with health insurance (like I was still working), contingent on my cooperation with the consultants they retained to replace me.

This seems a bit light if you are literally the guy who keeps all the lights on. I'd expect at the very least to transition you to a consulting contract at a very generous rate to ensure your continued cooperation.

How much do you think the consultants that they retained to replace you cost?

Far, far less.... they likely saved 75% or more. It started out as a 40 hour/week job, by the end, things got reliable enough that I spent most of my time waiting for things to do.

Because you are honest. I recently said GOOD bye to a coworker who left on their own, but damn, they were awful to work with and in hindsight their work was shit. With the ego we sometimes saw I believe they would have scorched earth had the company got wise and up right fired them.

You and one of the answers both call out 3 months severance, but I think that's far too little. It needs to be an amount where they obviously come out very ahead. Something like one year. An amount so impressive they'll be happy to leave.

A whole decade of handover, holy shit!

the author of the question has a strong opinion against such a step, that he calls "appeasement". See his answers when asked for his reasons.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com