As a previous so-called ‘ghost engineer’, it took three people to replace me, and four months for damage control when I wasn’t there to keep things in top shape. There was documentation to keep things running, but since I wrote that documentation and “my contributions weren’t necessary foe the team’s success” Well. Why leave them?

As someone who lives in the “wouldn’t be that tough.” That’s big talk for someone who likely doesn’t want to spend their last moments desperately clawing at the roof of a pine box.