Ask Slashdot: Best Practices For Leaving an IT Admin Position?

An anonymous reader writes "I've been the server admin at a university for the past five years. Recently, I was given the chance to move from servers to networking, and I jumped at it. I now find myself typing up all my open-ended projects, removing certain scripts and stopping others. What would the community recommend as best practices for passing on administration of some servers? I am trying to avoid a phone call that results in me having to remote in, explain something, jog to the other side of campus to access the machine, etc. Essentially, I'm trying to cover all my bases so any excuse my replacement has to call me is seen as nothing but laziness or incompetence. I am required to give him a day of training to show him where everything is on the servers (web and database), and during that day I'm going to have him change all the passwords. But aside from locking myself out and knowing what is where, what else should I be doing?"

Have him/her sign off after your training

[KnightMB]

Be fair of course in how you word it, but nothing speaks better than "I showed the new Admin X,Y,Z and he knows how to do X,Y,Z; here the signature to prove it". I know you are trying to avoid a new Admin coming in and then complaining about how the previous guy didn't know what the hell he was doing. Happens to everyone I'm afraid, but at least have your bases covered for what any replacement needs to know to operate in your permanent absence. It will also discourage the new admin from making any drama scenes with his/her new boss when he/she knows you have something in writing that is suppose to demonstrate/validate his/her new skills in the position. Other than that, don't burn any bridges, try to be helpful to the new Admin, when you have the free time, but don't go out your way and sacrifice your new job to help a struggling admin who might be in over his head due to fluffing up the resume.

Last minute changes?

[rednip]

Essentially, I'm trying to cover all my bases so any excuse my replacement has to call me is seen as nothing but laziness or incompetence.

Do you hate the guy? Sure people can be time wasters, but you wouldn't be blowing off a user, but an admin who's hands you might need at some time in the future.

I now find myself typing up all my open-ended projects, removing certain scripts and stopping others.

What's with all the last minute changes? Clearly it's not a 'best practice' to change anything just before you hand it over, as some issues can take days, weeks, or months to become noticed, if they can be traced back you your last minute 'unwarranted' changes, you'll be at the other end of those 'incompetence charges'.

Re:Wiki

[Kjella]

You're supposed to, but if nobody asks for it then it likely doesn't happen since lack of work documentation would be somewhere around #43542 on my list of worries should I end up in a traffic accident. And if your manager is ridden hard to always do new system and new projects, well he too might let it slip until the shit hits the fan. It's the same way documentation and testing have a mysterious way of disappearing from development plans. Sometimes it seems companies are happy to find a scapegoat, but do nothing about the system that leads to it being that way.

Re:Wiki

[BrokenHalo]

If you are in a position to leave without being escorted hastily out of the door within a few minutes of handing in your notice, you might consider yourself to be in luck.

I can understand the rationale behind such a practice in a toxic workplace where such suspicious attitudes are rife, but it doesn't feel good being on the receiving end of it.

This happened to me once, back in 1990. I thought I was doing the right thing by giving plenty of notice so that a replacement could be found and given an orderly handover, but my desk was immediately cleared by the HR manager, who then personally escorted me out and drove me to my house to pick up the terminals and modem hardware I used to drive the systems outside hours from home. It felt like I was being sacked.

Re:Wiki

[omglolbah]

Yes. That is what most IT people will say.

It hurts but that is how it is.

When I left my previous job I left 12000 lines of badly commented and worse documented code behind.. The code runs the turnstiles and ticketing systems for an exhibition center... The nutters put me in charge of developing it from scratch with a hard deadline of 2 months in addition to an already 100% job...
Soooo there is virtually no docs on the code... the code is littered with test logic.. There are STILL 4 years later pieces of error code that will print messages to the screen to call me on my cell... a number I still use *shudder*

Why was it left like that? I begged to go back and fix all the shit for a year after it was put in 'production'.. My boss wouldnt let me. Too expensive to document things. My time was better spent doing other things. I hate that my name is on the system... but that is how it goes.

Worst detail: The whole mess is not a compiled exe.. it all runs in debug mode from visual studio on a machine in a small cabinet..

That kind of mess is one of the major reasons to leave a job. It will just end up biting you in the ass if you keep working like that, even if it is not your fault it ends up that way. Get out as soon as possible..

Re:Don't be a dick, dick

[Americano]

This, and... if the replacement has a legit problem that will require a significant chunk of your time to help address and correct, make sure you tell him "Look, I'm happy to help, but you gotta get your boss to talk to mine. This is a 10hr/week x 8 week commitment you're asking of me, and there needs to be mgmt support of me spending this much time in this fashion."

This situation happened to me where I was reorg'ed to a new department. I was the last person at the company who had working knowledge of a system which was decommissioned shortly before I was reorg'ed, and then some legal snafu happened and my replacement was faced with the need to dig into offsite backups, pull data out of the archived system, and provide that data to some other team. The guy who took over my other projects was competent, but it still would have taken him months to understand & get everything working again. I was familiar with the system, but I told him that it would still take me a couple weeks to get everything operational and extract the data, and asked him & his manager to talk to my new boss to make sure I was cleared to spend my time doing that much work for them.

This way, I:
1) Was the "nice guy" who helped out a coworker in a bind;
2) Didn't get slagged by my own boss for suddenly wasting a ton of time doing something unrelated to my new role that he hadn't assigned me;
3) Didn't have to spend hours and hours working "free overtime" for the company;
4) Got extra credit on my next review for not being a prima donna who refuses to pitch in when his expertise needed;

I also received (and receive still) occasional calls from the person who inherited my projects when I was reorg'ed. When he has a question, he'll usually call me and say, "Hey, let me buy you a cup of coffee." I get a free cup of coffee, he gets pointed in the right direction, and then we spend 15 minutes chatting about life and work and family.