Gaining knowledge is the first step to wisdom. Sharing it is the first step to humanity. — Unknown I’m not planning to retire just yet. Another year. Maybe two. That notwithstanding, my boss recently asked me to arrange a series of knowledge transfer sessions with the rest of the team. KT, as it’s referred to in business speak, sounds simple enough. Write down, record, or demonstrate everything you know and do, so others will know it and can do it too. So they can be you, in some limited sense. A “brain dump” of sorts. In practice, it often amounts to little more than a box-ticking exercise. A few documents are created. A few KT sessions are held. Questions are asked and answered, or not. The tasks, processes, and responsibilities are handed over. The person moves on to other work, another team, or leaves the company. I didn’t — don’t — want my KT to be like that. By way of context, I’m sixty-five years old. For the past thirty-two years I’ve worked in the I.T. industry. My...
But it’s all right now, in fact it’s a gas. — Mick Jagger / Keith Richards. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” It took Barrie the British Gas engineer forty minutes to fit the new smart meter at my house. Forty minutes of work for him. Six weeks and forty minutes of anxiety for me. Earlier this year I described how anxious I get ahead of social occasions such as my friends’ wedding. I guess Barrie qualifies as people; our brief conversations as he worked a social event. But that’s not what put me so much on edge this time. It was the intrusion of someone from the Outside into my home environment. The temporary relinquishing of control to Someone Else, albeit a skilled and practiced professional. It was the uncertainty of what the appointment might herald. What if the ancient gas cooker failed inspection and was disconnected as being unsafe? What if the meter proved too awkward to get at or impossible to replace? I felt much the same last year when the electricity meter was replaced wit...