So, I wanted to talk about this Madeleine Kerr situation I ran into a while back. It wasn’t like, a huge deal, but it stuck with me, you know? It’s one of those things you file away in your head.
What happened was, I basically got handed this chunk of work. The person before me, Madeleine Kerr, had moved on, or quit, or whatever. Didn’t really get the full story. My job was just to pick it up and figure out what was going on. Simple enough, right?
So I started digging in. Opened up the folders, looked through the documents, the code, the notes – whatever I could find. It was… well, it was something. Things were all over the place. Some stuff was half-finished, other bits seemed done but made absolutely no sense in the grand scheme of things. It was like walking into a room someone left in a hurry, mid-thought.
- First, I tried to map out the main pieces. What was actually completed?
- Then, I attempted to track down anyone who might have worked with her on this. No luck there, seemed like folks either didn’t know or didn’t want to get involved. Typical.
- Spent a good few days just trying to piece together the logic. It felt like detective work, honestly.
The whole process was just frustrating. No clear documentation, comments were cryptic when they existed at all. It wasn’t complex stuff, necessarily, just messy. A real time sink figuring out someone else’s chaotic workflow.
Why am I even bringing up this random work thing?
It’s because that whole experience dragged up memories of this other time, at a completely different company years ago. It wasn’t about inheriting someone’s messy work, but the feeling was the same – stepping into chaos caused by someone else’s departure and a lack of any real system.
Back then, we had this manager. Let’s call him Dave. Dave was one of those guys who liked to start things. Lots of energy, big ideas. He’d kick off a project, get everyone hyped up, make a bunch of promises, and then… poof. He’d get bored or distracted and move onto the next shiny thing, leaving the team holding the bag.
One time, he launched this huge initiative. Required new software, new processes, the works. We spent months on it. Then, right before launch, Dave suddenly took another job. Just vanished. Left zero handover notes. His replacement had no clue what was happening. The project just imploded. All that work, down the drain. People were stressed, pointing fingers. It created this really toxic vibe for months.
It wasn’t just the wasted work, it was the feeling of being adrift. No leadership, no clear direction, just cleaning up a mess someone else made because the company didn’t have its act together on how to handle transitions or manage projects properly. We were all just scrambling, trying to keep our heads above water.
So yeah, wading through Madeleine Kerr’s digital leftovers kinda gave me flashbacks to that whole Dave episode. It’s not about Madeleine herself, I guess. It’s more about how that feeling of inheriting undocumented, unfinished stuff really highlights bigger problems. Whether it’s one person’s messy files or a manager ditching a project, it’s usually a sign that the system itself is broken. No proper handover, no knowledge sharing, just hoping the next person can magically figure it all out. And usually, they can’t. Not without a lot of wasted time and headaches, anyway.
