---
title: "Passing the Torch"
date: 2020-09-30
description: ""
---

When I left my last job, I was lucky enough to do so on great terms with
everyone there. It was all very _the circumstances are what they are -
nothing to be done_. So, when I put in my notice, I was asked to spend some
time showing my replacement the ropes, and I was surprised by how much I
enjoyed it!

Much as I did like working with the company, there was a thing or two that made
my own onboarding a bit weird. The first day of the job basically began with,
"You know some C? Go fix an enormous memory leak in this Linux driver."

> "Okay."

I enjoyed the challenge, and it worked out alright, but it was definitely a
rough way to start. Worse, it took forever to figure out what people even
_did_ every day. Evidently, I was on a team of 3, but it was days before I
knew who my teammates were, and weeks before I figured out what they were
actually working on.

So, I wanted to save my replacement some time. Most of it was just saying "the
device we're working on is designed to do _this_, your teammates are these
two, who work on _that_ and _that_, and what you'll be doing for the
foreseeable future is _this_". So it wasn't exactly excruciating. I just
tried to clear up some of vagueries I dealt with at the beginning. Sometimes,
it also made sense to help them brush up on C, which, as I've [mentioned before](/posts/c),
I'm unreasonably happy to do.

It was hard in a few ways, because at this point the company did most of its
work remotely. I never actually got a chance to meet the person replacing me,
but I still enjoyed teaching, and I hope I made their life a little easier.

I'm definitely not clamoring to lead a group based on one, "I taught someone
some stuff and then _left before there could be consequences"_, but I
really liked my brief excursion in it, and I'd be happy to try again!