End of the year, and with it the end of an era at my workplace. My co-worker for the past 15 years apparently decided to retire. He and I didn't really get along, we had significant differences of opinion regarding practical decisions in our job (ex: he disabled Windows Update on systems in his area, I forced it on in mine), and more than once I caught him actively trying to sabotage my work (ex: he'd intercept deliveries and then give me the box missing some components). So him leaving, in itself, is a good thing for me. He couldn't go without one final stab at me, though. He gave zero warning (we met Monday at 8am and at 11am our shared boss tells me he's gone) so I was wildly unprepared. Worse, there are no work notes left behind that I can find. No "jobs in progress" notes, no stickies labeling any of the various computers half-disassembled. No labels on any of the still unopened boxes recently received (shipping labels are there, thankfully, but getting from those to "who is this for" will be a process). Nothing. It will be better overall eventually, but for the next few months I have to try and piece together what is going on in this new area almost as large as what had been my entire support area previously.
It's going to be a bit rough for his end users, though. Not only am I trying to take over starting from zero, I also have planned quite a few changes to implement as we go forward. Regular updates, domain account logins, no more "classic start menu" installed by default (I don't ban it, if they want to install it they can, I just won't install it by default). The list goes on and on.