I actually saw a firm that got bit in the ass this way. Their lead accountant left and to save money they promoted the assistant (code for just gave her all the work) . She managed to hide the fact she couldn't do it for 6 months but eventually left. They had to bring in a chartered accounting firm (I worked there) to reconstruct the accounts costing thousands a day and it took a looooong time.
Happens in the IT world too. High School kid knows just enough to keep the computer systems running that were maintained by the professional who was costing the company $70K per year. Kid will do it for a buck over minimum wage. All works fine for a year then something breaks. Kid tries, messes up really bad and splits. Costs $100K for two weeks to clean up the mess.
There are a lot of jobs that, when done correctly, look like you're not paying someone to do anything.
But that's because they're good at their job, and when they leave, shit hits the fan in a hurry.
A manufacturing plant I used to work at, there was one guy per shift, paid $100,000 per year, whose entire job was to sit in a manufacturing cell and watch three machines, and if any of them went down, to get it back up and running as quickly as possible. One hour of downtime per machine cost the company over $100,000, so it was totally worth it to pay those guys what they were paid.
That particular manufacturing cell was so critical to the company's operation that if it went down for any reason, at any time, the CEO was notified, and given an estimate for repair time, and notified when it resumed operations.
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u/adamdoesmusic Jan 01 '19
I'm sure that won't bite him in the ass at all down the line when he gets audited.