Briefing your replacement?

["Geoff Hart" <geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca>]

Rasil Ahuja works <<... for a government contractor and recently 
submitted my resignation... I was shown the resume of a possible 
replacement... a recent journalism grad with a little over one year of 
professional experience... I am somewhat doubtful because there 
is little technical writing mentioned.  I am concerned about how this 
"newbie" will do in an environment where no engineer takes an 
interest in documentation... how much of an interest should I take 
in the hiring of my replacement?>>

Apart from the ethics of the situation (i.e., giving back what was 
given to you, namely the mentoring you received when you first got 
the job), it's important to leave the most favorable  impression 
possible behind you once you're gone. No matter how amicable 
your departure, the people who have to pick up the slack (both the 
newcomer and the people who work with the newcomer) are still 
going to feel abandoned if you simply leave.

If there's any way to get the newcomer on-site for a week or two 
while you're still there, that's a great opportunity to teach the 
newbie the internal procedures and politics, plus some of the 
details of the job. The newcomer will love you for this (it's much 
less frightening than being dropped into a completely unfamiliar 
environment and being told to sink or swim), management will love 
you for this (they'll get the new employee up to speed much faster), 
your kharmic balance sheet will be seriously lightened (you've done 
a good deed), and you'll have left great impressions behind you 
("this techwhirler cares about the company and other people") for 
relatively minimal effort on your own part. That's a win-win-win-win 
situation in my books.

If you can't mentor the person in person, perhaps you can at least 
spend some time documenting the "top ten" things the person 
needs to know, and offering limited time on the phone at your new 
job if they need to call for help during the transition. I've done this 
the past two places I worked, and provided that assistance posed 
no problem for my new employer, it was an offer gratefully 
accepted by the previous one.

--Geoff Hart @8^{)}  geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca  (Pointe-Claire, Quebec)
"If you can't explain it to an 8-year-old, you don't understand it"--Albert Einstein