I’ve seen it happen, including other employees telling me I should make sure to zip up my code before I left (which I would never do). It’s only been at the earlier companies I worked for with many devs of questionable skill level. I’m not sure what’s behind the mentality, I assumed the act of writing decent code was challenging to them or it was perhaps something they were proud of, but maybe it’s also some misplaced sense of ownership. At one company I’ve experienced a dev asking back printouts of a design for a CRM at the end of a presentation, I assumed it was “borrowed” from their last job (thankfully we went a different direction). But regardless it definitely is a thing.

> I’ve rewritten quite a bit of the same logic at most places I’ve worked over the years.

Same here. I’ve learned to enjoy it, like perfecting a craft.