Institutional Memory and Reverse Smuggling

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Institutional Memory and Reverse Smuggling

Posted by timothy on Sunday December 4, 2011 @06:36AM from the you-never-forget-your-first-flunitrazepam dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Anyone who's worked in a large engineering firm is familiar with institutional amnesia. Things get built, and then forgotten. Documentation is supposed to help, but rots, is lost, or uses obsolete methods and notation nobody understands anymore. I recently found myself in a strange position, rehired as a consultant with the unofficial job of reminding the company how an old plant works. I even have some personal copies of documents they seem to have lost, which I have to awkwardly smuggle back in. I don't find these kinds of experience written about often, but I'm convinced they're more common than you'd think."

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Been there, done that: by Hartree · 2011-12-04 06:44 · Score: 5, Funny

But the NDAs keep me and everyone else involved from talking about it. :P
Aliens. by mosb1000 · 2011-12-04 07:05 · Score: 5, Funny

If the history channel read this story, they would undoubtably conclude that the plant was built with the help of aliens.
You haven't discovered job security by Colin+Smith · 2011-12-04 07:16 · Score: 5, Funny

Until you write it in cobol.

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Re:I see this in code I work on all the time by zill · 2011-12-04 07:25 · Score: 4, Funny

You guys have it easy. Sometime when I write a comment I for-SQUIRRELS!
Re:It's common by brusk · 2011-12-04 07:35 · Score: 5, Funny

Maybe if the company had given itself a name it would have been easier for it to keep track of information.

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It is a solved problem by Bryan+Ward · 2011-12-04 08:07 · Score: 5, Funny

Years ago people solved this problem but they didn't document their solution well, so here we are again.
Re:Opportunity for more pay by Anonymous Coward · 2011-12-04 08:20 · Score: 5, Funny

I know a guy who, after the company was bought, got the ax along with every other engineer in the place.
As he was working remotely, he had a local copy of the entire repo. With his severance check was a reminder to "destroy all company information in his possession".
Fortunately, he didn't do that because, 2 months later, they came back asking if he had gotten around to doing that because the salesdroids accidentally sold off the main repo server when they liquidated the office equipment.
He greatly enjoyed negotiating the fee for "recreating" the repo that he "didn't have".