An organization can lose its memory every time the person with the oldest notebook leaves.

Much of what an organisation knows is not written anywhere. It sits in one person’s head and one person’s notes, the workarounds, the reasons behind odd decisions, the name of who to call. When they leave, the files remain and the understanding does not, and the place quietly begins solving problems it already solved once. Institutional memory is mostly individual memory that nobody transferred.

If you are the one with the oldest notebook, write down the ten things people ask you that are not documented. If you manage someone like that, schedule the transfer before it becomes urgent, because it will not happen on its own. The knowledge is cheap to record and expensive to rebuild.