How many boxes does it take to pack up six and a half years of employment?  It turns out that the answer is two.

I finished packing up all my things from work today, with tomorrow being my last day at SugarCRM.  I also spent a good portion of the afternoon cleaning up the files on my laptop, removing personal files and accounts.  When it’s all said and done, the only things left are one more message in my inbox, one more meeting with my boss, an exit interview, and a going-away lunch with the crew.  I’m ready to put it all to bed.

This isn’t the first time I’ve left a company, but it’s the first time where I feel like I haven’t wrapped everything up cleanly, with a clear transition in place.  When I finally left Netscape/AOL, it was because my business unit was closing down, and there wasn’t anyone left to hand things to.  When I left Sun Microsystems, there were other people doing the exact same job as me — albeit in different product lines — but they certainly knew what to do in my absence.

However, with SugarCRM, there isn’t an immediate replacement coming in to do my job.  In fact, my job has been a mixed bag of responsibilities, sort of a jack-of-all-trades position.  I pretty much molded it to me after taking on the current role, and my varied experience with the company was my calling card.  I’d seen it all, so I could cover anything that came my way.  While there are other people in the company who could certainly fill my shoes, they’re in other critical roles that would leave just as big of a hole if they were to leave.  Institutional knowledge goes a long way when you’ve been there for nearly the entire life of the company.

On the other hand, that won’t be my problem once tomorrow afternoon rolls around.  I’ve tried to tie things up, leave things in an okay state. Inevitably, there will be things that fall through the cracks. Hopefully, it’ll all be a memory in a couple of months.