(This story hearkens back to Staff with Forks.)
D was a nice, highly competent member of the Math Department staff. She was so conscientious and kind that before she left for a job in a different department, she spent her last two weeks making the computer files and emails easy for her successor to use. D told me that the staff should just call her if they had any trouble finding anything after she left.
Soon after D's last day, I stopped by to welcome her successor E to the department.
It transpired that E was struggling because she didn't have the computer password that would allow her to access the old files.
I told E that D had gone to great trouble to get the files ready for her successor, and that D had said she was willing and eager to help out after she left. Let's just phone D, who still worked on campus, and ask her how to access the files.
Both E and her boss, the department manager, were horrified that I would consider contacting D after she left the department. One simply doesn't do that at UCI.
No wonder it seems as if the university has no institutional memory.