[abc123abc123]

True. It is part of the general industrial ritual of reducing workers to a number or a letter combination. That way, managers reduce the emotional attachment to the people, and they can fire them more easily.

If, instead, you would be Tom, Bill and Biff, there is a risk that the manager would build attachment, and make it harder to treat you bad. If you're IC1, IC2 and IC3, you can be exchanged like machine parts when you break, without anyone crying.

Welcome to the modern world! =)

[dasil003]

No that’s not really how it works in tech at all. There’s a deep recognition that individual engineers (and other functional practitioners) have important knowledge and expertise that is essential. Of course you do need some overlap and redundancy so that people can take sick days and avoid the wheels falling off through attrition, but competent shops aren’t ever treating people as numbers. To the contrary good ICs are widely recognized as being much less full-of-shit then management.

[john-h-k]

Generally managers still learn their teams names… and I’ve never heard of ICs being numbered