I remember an old colleague telling me a story (so it may be apocryphal) of a company who had a written procedure for a delicate task. It was the kind of task that only got done when things were going VERY pear shaped, and it had been about 3 years since the last time t had been needed.
My old colleague, then just a junior PFY, dutifully went and obtained the procedure from the guide, and started to follow the steps precisely, as he had been instructed to do. About 2/3 of the way through he went to visit his boss and asked who Dave ********* was? His boss looked at him funnily, and told him to stop being a troublemaker and get back to work. My colleague returned to his desk collected the guide, returned to his boss, and told him he was stuck on Step 24.
The Boss grumbled, scanned down the page, and upon reaching Step 24, proceeded to turn white as a sheet, and mouth something along the lines of "Oh Sh%t!". The Instruction read something along the lines of "For the Password to System X, please contact Dave *********."
Apparently, this Dave had left the company about 18 months before, and it had not been a happy breakup. So the chances of getting the password were Zero.
I dont remember, what my old colleague said happened, apart from a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, but he and the company learnt a valuable lesson. Never entrust sensitive information to a single person. And better yet, dont entrust it to a person at all, but use a safe (or for the modern case), a password locker.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
