"But Daniel," emailed Pagliacci, tears in his eyes, "I am the IT department" Seriously the number of times I've seen companies lay off the only person who knew

"But Daniel," emailed Pagliacci, tears in his eyes, "I am the IT department" Seriously the number of times I've seen companies lay off the only person who knew anything about X without realising they'd been dealing with problems with X for years and now that falls on a manager, a new hire, an intern...there's also people who don't know who to ask internally, or worse, feel like they can't ask internally because it will make them look incompetent. Early in my career, the top nerd in the office knew all the answers, but delighted in being unremittingly rude and humiliating to anyone who deigned to ask him anything. That's the kind of behaviour that leads to people seeking any other channel for help. The best thing I learned from him was not to be like him.