This morning I was discussing options with a colleague for a medical research study, we also discussed current work challenges including the poor ergonomics and physical pain caused by working from home. In encouragement to push back enough to take care of myself, my colleague gave me a great compliment. “You are irreplaceable!”

While I appreciated the thought, I do have to beg to differ.

In another example of the universe exhibiting its perfect timing, the obituary notice of a former colleague was circulated today. He retired one year before I started, so I never got to work with him, but he’s had a great impact on those who did mentor me. He had over 500 refereed manuscripts and book chapters. He mentored others. Even after he retired, he stayed socially connected with many from the department, and when others nearing retirement ages emailed him for advice he continued his mentoring efforts on this new front.

But while he did and continued to do all of those great things for his colleagues and medical research, he was retired, and eventually died. I was hired to be the next in line in one of the areas he’d supported. I certainly could never personally feel the gap left by his retirement, being blind to it from my own perspective and situation, although obviously I was indirectly benefiting from his prior presence, and it was also readily apparent that he was missed, as he was mentioned often.

In other words, he was replaced; essentially completely so, and within a year from his retirement.

He was one of the most influential people in our department in the last 50 years, he had a great impact on our department, and yet he was replaced. Obviously, if any of our colleagues were hit by a bus or taken down by COVID-19 tomorrow, they would be replaced. People continue to retire, or quit to pursue life and/or career elsewhere, and they are being replaced. Not seamlessly, not painlessly, they are human beings after all, with unique strengths and weakness, not just interchangeable cogs in a machine. But they are being replaced.

If I were gone tomorrow, I too would be replaced at work. I am not irreplaceable to medical research and my colleagues, however flattering it is to be told so.

Where I am irreplaceable, is at home. With my young children, who due to their biology being half mine plus having obviously spent their entire lives with me, are some of the best understanders of my needs, my value, my strengths, my weaknesses.

How about you? Do you think you’re irreplaceable at work? What has happened with the retirement or death of each former colleague? Contrast that with how your family would cope in your absence. Will you change anything about your life, with these pieces in mind?