Training my replacement

I've been training my replacement at WNYC. It's an odd feeling to train the person who will effectively be you mere days away, and this is the fourth (or fifth, depending on how you count) time that I'm doing it.

It's not just odd because of the feeling of finality and ending, but it's a weird balance of wanting the new person to succeed as well as wanting to be missed. I can't say I'm sad to leave. I can't say I'm excited to be training my replacement. I probably can't say I'm being fully thorough -- but that's not on purpose, that's just because I cannot think of what she needs to be trained on and know that she'll learn it all by doing it an asking questions, which I've already expressed that I'll be willing to answer remotely.

Perhaps the hardest thing about training someone is the fact that by the time training comes along, you've (almost) always mentally checked out of the job by that point. (In my five times training replacements, this has been true four of the five. The odd one out was at camp, when I knew before summer began that I was leaving, so I spent the whole summer pointing out the little things. Ultimately, the person I'd picked to replace me had to replace someone else so it was a futile training, but, y'know...not the point.) Once mentally checked out, it's very hard to get excited about day-to-day tasks, or even remember most of them.

But I'll do my best. Not necessarily out of loyalty, or out of doing what's right, or because I've been asked to and it's still my job for another few days, but because of karma. Others will train me, and some of those others will be people I've replaced. And I hope they'll give me the same good-faith effort I'm giving my replacement.

Because as much as on-the-job training is important, it's nice to have a little warning.