LMNOP

You know that movie from a few months back where that guy knows he's dying, so he writes his wife all these letters and instructions and she's not allowed to look at them until he's gone, and then he dies and she reads the letters and does all these little activities that he designed to get her to heal herself and become a better person?  Preparing to leave a job is like that, except instead of lovingly writing instructions for a person you know and love, you are blindly trying to document the procedures of a job you already checked out of for a replacement you met a week ago.  And you get the feeling that instead of finding herself magically a better person at the end of it all, the person replacing you is going to feel screwed and lost.

That's not to say I'm not trying to be helpful; I've been going in early and staying late all week trying to make sure my files are transferred to the right people and my responsibilities are covered and primed for transition.  Still, it's really hard to anticipate what someone's going to need to know, and some of it you can't really explain anyway.  Otherwise, I would need to make the following instructional documents:

• Powerpoint presentation entitled, "How to play along with the client-site Office Supervisor's borderline-racist jokes without actually appearing racist yourself"
• A copy of the Weekly Status Meeting agenda, annotated to show which segments are ideal times for bathroom breaks and which topics must be paid attention to "for real for real"
• Org Chart identifying the various people whose authorization you will need for certain tasks, as well as the people along the way you have to pretend to ask first so you don't look like you're hassling someone important
• Treasure Map leading to the supply cabinet with the good folders (the ones in the bright colors)

I feel bad that the new person will have to figure these things out for herself, but only to an extent.  After all, aren't I going to be in the exact same position on Monday when I start my new job?  I highly doubt I will arrive my desk and find a neat stack of papers explaining who's cool, who's mean, and who's the office perv.  I will have to find that out for myself as the weeks go by, and maybe if I am lucky when it's over I'll be happy and fulfilled and living the kind of life where it never occurs to me to make analogies based on romantic comedies I never saw.

MAYBE.