The saying, "Don't be irreplaceable because you'll be unpromotable" is my story. In a telecom company, my director's boss was bragging to his boss about the database and integration systems I wrote. He said something like, "Don't think of stealing him." That year, a mass layoff took away my position.

Was there a reverberation? I saw a scramble, but corporate policies kept laid-off employees away out of fear of espionage. The company collapsed under scandal within a couple of years, eventually selling to a competitor.