Wednesday, March 5, 2008

My successor

On July 12, 2008, I will be replaced by a new VISTA, fresh from VISTA training in Provo. They will finish training on July 11, fly back from Utah that night (if they are like me, they will proceed to 80's night and get hit on by an 18 year old who wants to have a threesome in his Saab.), and the next morning, report to work. The new VISTA will most likely not meet the previous VISTA; most likely they will just be set adrift with a vague workplan and a lap top.

If I was a kind, compassionate person, I would recall my confusion and desparation in my early weeks as a VISTA, and respond by leaving a clearly-labled filing systems, accurately-named computer documents, and perhaps a list of important things to know. However, it is much more fun to think of ways to make life difficult for my successor. (They'll thank me for it eventually anyways. The more effeciently they'll be able to do their job, the less time it will take them to do it, leading to more time spent staring vacantly at the wall. Anytime not spent staring at the wall is good time, generally speaking.)

Here are some things that I thought I could do:
- Title all Publisher documents with acronyms that are only comprehensible to me: apdepdonapsp2 is obviously the second version of an advertisement in Spanish for Appliance Depot's appliance removal service

- Start and get halfway through a huge mailing project, to the point where I do all the easy envelope stuffing and label making, but the new VISTA has to make all the follow up calls.

- Title all spreadsheets things like 'Family Vacation' and 'Cute Puppies'.

- Change phone number on letterheads and business cards to fax number, so people can never return phone calls.

Any other ideas?

2 comments:

KJW said...

Get someone with SARS to sneeze on the keyboard and mouse.

Lindsay said...

You could do what my successor did and keep stacks and stacks of useless outdated information from every scrap of paper that crossed her desk, then file them amongst the important papers so you have to dig for the good stuff...

just a thought