Dead Clients

      Death is inevitable. Take either a large enough group of people and a short period of time, or a smaller group and a longer time frame. In either case, at some point, someone will die.



      While I do not have a massive number of clients, I have been helping people with their computer challenges for a number of years. And while most of them are still in the land of the living, not all of them are.

      So what do I do when someone dies? Depends on the details of course.

      In one case, I did basically nothing. The nature of the work I had been doing meant there was nothing outstanding to resolve. Businesswise, no real impact. On a personal level, different story altogether…

      With another client, it was more complicated. There was ongoing work, involving maintaining a website. Which meant I had to talk with the next of kin, and sort stuff out. While the website is still around, they opted for new management. Which was fine, that was their decision to make. I gave them what useful information I had, helped them transition things over, and hope things have gone well since.



      In both cases, the steps taken on my part were effectively the same:
1) Look at what I have and see if there is anything the next of kin might be interested in. If so, pass it on. If not, do nothing.
2) Pick a date a few years out and add it to the name of the folder the files are in, to serve as a reminder for deletion. If something comes up before then, the files are still there. If not, clearly they aren’t that important and can be safely deleted.
3) Reminisce.

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