I dislike the term "individual contributor" for many reasons, but chiefly because there's already a word for "employee who isn't a manager" and it's "worker"
Replies
i thought it was code for "we want their work output enough to bubble wrap them because don't fit in to the corporate culture"
aug 4, 2025, 10:48 pm • 1 0 • view
In orgs I've been a part of, IC means "knowledge worker whose advancement track doesn't include official reports on the org chart". Some are forever leaf nodes in the org chart; others are doing more management than the managers, but between org sections because the org chart is stuck in the 90s.
aug 5, 2025, 4:33 pm • 2 0 • view
It's a weird cop-out because the orgs can't quite seem to deal with aligning compensation with value rather than org chart depth.
aug 5, 2025, 4:39 pm • 0 0 • view
Managers work! At least good ones do.
aug 4, 2025, 10:14 pm • 2 0 • view
The bad-actor thinkers gives the entire brand a bad name 😌 Too much patriarchy, nepotism, and old imperialism in thinker role tho. Your cousin Vinny is a bad doer? Very visible and ownable Your cousin Vinny a bad thinker? Other people fuck up so Vinny gets overlooked
aug 4, 2025, 10:37 pm • 2 0 • view
[Wal-Mart loudspeaker] cast member needed at checkout #3
aug 5, 2025, 4:14 pm • 2 0 • view
the last time I cast member, they kicked me out of wizarding school
aug 5, 2025, 4:17 pm • 5 0 • view
pavel,
aug 6, 2025, 1:24 am • 1 0 • view
i was well out of the job market when "IC" became a thing and every time i hear it, i can't believe it. that managers try to make it happen, yes that employees USE IT WILLINGLY? shocking.
aug 4, 2025, 10:33 pm • 2 0 • view
Yeah, but that one has some history to it. Might start giving them ideas. Better to get all the IC’s thinking of themselves as part of the temporarily-embarrassed professional managerial class, no?
aug 4, 2025, 10:13 pm • 12 0 • view
The "individual" is definitely doing a lot of heavy lifting to discourage notions of solidarity
aug 4, 2025, 10:14 pm • 13 0 • view
Just remember, it's all human resources. Getting rid of personnel as the language was a coup.
aug 5, 2025, 4:45 pm • 0 0 • view
'team member' mother fucker this aint the yankees and i aint lou gehrig
aug 5, 2025, 4:13 pm • 1 0 • view
I tend to think of managers in most structures as part of the worker class. Maybe the IC/Manager divide is better expressed as a creator-coordinator spectrum? Both ends of which are in tension with the owners (execs, shareholders)?
aug 4, 2025, 11:02 pm • 2 0 • view