I use to work with a life insurance product called Key Man Insurance. The purpose of this insurance was to cover someone considered a Key Man in a business in the event that they died and/or were disabled and this event would have a negative impact on that business continuing. I never sold any of these policies however it got me to wondering. I’ve never meet someone that I would consider a Key Man during my decades of working.   No matter how useful someone may have been where I was working, once they left, we continued as usual. One time the main go to guy was there for five years when he left, I was only there for six months when he did so and I became the senior person, but I survived, I figured it out. I knew how to ask questions if I didn’t know the answer. Did this qualify me as the Key Man? Maybe someday I’ll meet such a person, but so far not yet.

I did however have a former coworker who apparently thought of herself as a Key Man. She was one of the supervisors and was involved in a disagreement with another supervisor over company policy and came out on the losing side of it and was told to resolve this issue along company guidelines. She refused and demanded not only to get her way, but if she didn’t she was going to quit. My employer’s response was, nice to know you and don’t let the door hit you in the rear on the way out. They wouldn’t even let her pack up her desk; they escorted her right out of the building and mailed it to her. I guess she was a self-perceived Key Man, but only she saw it.