AIBU to think my handover should actually be a handover, not me being snapped at?

A 15 hour handover is ridiculous. Also this lady resigned so frankly the company and your job are not her priority..

It is also a complete red flag that she was expected to do so much on her own.

I would not want to work for a company like this.

well, I am in a Scandinavian country. I guess we just do things differently. I did wonder about the chaos at some of the British companies but I guess that you just explained that.

You needed ChatGPT to craft a response to a comment on MN? Why?

In my case, I was asked back - in a short term non-managerial role after my successor left. (I had retired on a reduced pension and was willing to step in as a classroom teacher for two days a week to help out my former department.)

To my consternation, there was an expectation that I do my non-managerial job plus mentor the temp manager…

There was a certain amount of emotional blackmail involved and I finished up doing more than I should have done in order to avoid the disaster of pupils failing a course through no fault of their own. (The exam board had decided to verify a sample of coursework and the temp had no idea of how to deal with this.)

What industry is this in?

I’ve only seen a few cases where the replacement is in place before the current incumbent leaves. It simply isn’t practical a lot of the time - even if you open a vacancy the day the person resigns, you still need time to process applications, hold interviews etc. before you even consider that the successful candidate will have to work their own notice period. Additionally in some companies it’s not possible to hire someone into a role that’s already full (even if that person is leaving), because the vacancy effectively doesn’t exist yet.

I also think the 'checking out' on notice period is not acceptable. I've never done this myself and I cannot understand people who do - you are being paid to work, I find it's unbelievable people (senior apparently) just don't bother- where is your self-respect?

In this particular case, the OP’s predecessor’s self-respect probably took quite a hit when, despite being very good at her job, she was actively pushed towards the exit door because her face didn’t fit with senior management. That kind of thing can be pretty damaging.

I left my last job on good terms because I was offered a better opportunity. I wanted to make life as easy as possible for my manager, who had always been great, and my wider team, so I covered as much as possible, as well as finding time for a call with an internal candidate to replace me on my last day.

The job I left 15 years ago? I was virtually forced out by a senior manager who’d taken against me. She invented a role that sat above me (but that actually covered most of my responsibilities) to weaken any potential case for me to claim demotion. Once I resigned I did the absolute bare minimum, because why should I help a) a company that had treated me like shit and b) someone who was happy to take a job knowing I was being pushed out of it?

She IS doing the job she is being paid for. She’s just not going above and beyond to spoon feed you which is more than fair enough. You sound incredibly hard work and if it was me I would go of sick for the remainder of my notice period because the stress you would be causing me would necessitate it.

to replicate her daily work so the department output doesn’t suffer during the transition.

It is not realistic to expect no dip in output - the output will suffer. That is always the way with a change of staff. Your managers should know this.

It is not clear how senior this role actually is. You say in your OP "the woman who heads up this area", so most posters here have assumed it is a senior Head of Department type of role, i.e. management.

Yet it sounds like there is a fair amount of daily tasks which require detailed knowledge - so this is not like a management role?

For management, you get zero or minimal handover, but you are not expected to know the details of how junior people actually carry out tasks and work the computer system. You role is to manage, strategize, plan, understand the business and market, do the hard thinking. (Or as @Cinaferna so pithily says "bumble around the office doing nothing, spouting blue sky thinking managerial word salad")

For junior roles, where you have to know every file and every keystroke and get it all absolutely correct, where you are expected to slot in like a new cog to a machine, then yes you should get two or three weeks minimum, maybe more, of detailed step-by-step training.

The third type of role is a technical specialist. You do a small bit of daily procedure (needing down-to-the-keystroke training), but also have a massive amount of background skills and knowledge, e.g. programming languages or engineering or medical knowledge, and your job is to 'create new stuff and solve technical problems'.
This type of role varies hugely depending on how many staff you have in your team under you. Could be none, or a dozen. The more staff under you, the more you should delegate and become 'a manager', but unfortunately many technical specialists fail to delegate (because the stuff they do is their strength and what they enjoy), so the job becomes too big and the management side of their role is under-developed.
If this is the situation you are in, you need to delegate, and lean into becoming a 'manager'.
If there are not enough people to delegate to, then it is a poison chalice. Make the case for recruiting more juniors ASAP.

I’m in my late 50s and worked in private and public sector. I have never had a handover in any job I’ve had.
In most cases because the company doesn’t have the luxury of having 2 people paid to do the same role at the same time. Currently work in public sector, and a manager is retiring on our service, they leave next week and their replacement arrives 4 weeks after, it’s very common there is no handover.

Assume you will have a team OP @Slightlymalted ? so sit down with them 121 and find out what they do, their specialisms, their current reporting systems, their actual roles, the regular reporting ‘up’ they have to do.
Then sit down with MD or your CEO ( new boss) and find out their aims and objectives, what they want from you in first 30 / 60 / 90 days etc, then make your own way in the world and make it what you want to do in your own style of approach.

2 people trying to do 1 role where 1 person doesn't know what they're doing and asks a load of questions makes things much harder and take longer than just doing the work yourself.

OP make sure you have looked for yourself as much as possible before asking any questions. People often ask questions about numbers on excel where if they looked at the formula they could easily work it out for themselves, and if you don't know how to use a system become familiar with it as much as possible. That's what your predecessor likely had to do, so it can be frustrating if someone wants their hand held when you're very busy and you didn't get that support yourself.

Reporting her to the CEO will do nothing except make you look difficult and not up to it after so much training, and if it gets back to her she really won't want to help you.

To be honest, this reads as if you've bitten off more than you can chew. It also sounds as if she knows this and is a bit fed up with babysitting you.

If you need “proper training and support” to do the job, then are those going to be available? Handover is not training and it’s not a source of support. Is there any other training coming your way when she leaves? Who will you turn to? Are your responsibilities clearly set out and what the company means by those? after that you’ll just have to get on with it.

you will do your best learning on the job

Fifteen hours is an incredible amount of time for a hand-over. And as for "still being on the payroll" one of the first rules of management is that you never expect any serious work from somebody in their notice period".

This is exactly what happened in my handover. My successor got the role over the most experienced member of my team, who had worked with me for many years and had been an integral part of shaping key decisions, processes and systems. When it became apparent that my successor knew nowhere near as much as other team members (despite their department working together closely with mine), and was asking lots of questions about minor operational processes that they should have known, or been able to work out, rather than looking at the key strategic elements, this is where frustration at giving so much time kicked in.

I think the OP is using the word 'handover' interchangeably with 'training' - give them a break! I get you find your own way in senior positions, but there's no need to bite the OP's head off. At the moment there's two people in role so one should be spending the time helping the other find their feet. I also think the 'checking out' on notice period is not acceptable. I've never done this myself and I cannot understand people who do - you are being paid to work, I find it's unbelievable people (senior apparently) just don't bother- where is your self-respect?

I've recently changed jobs and had a solid week 'handover' which was no where near enough. But it was really training & handover.

Many jobs do not have comprehensive training notes, and many times it's much more effective to talk through / do these together than just read them - what counts as 'training' and 'handover' can be a bit of a grey area in practice. 'This is what should happen (training), but in this particular case this is the history so we do this (handover). You can't do the handover without the training.

You’re being wholly unrealistic.

In most senior jobs there is no handover. You turn up on day one and piece it together yourself.

the expectation that you’re going to be trained and supported by anyone - let alone the woman who’s all but been forced out - is ludicrous.

In your OP you sound quite contemptuous of your old boss: “I gather she was competent enough” is a phrase dripping in disdain.

you e arrogantly assumed you could step into her role with ease, discover it’s actually more complex than you realised snd now want her to hold your hand 🤣

I suspect that she is the only person who would be able to give you this handover - may be wrong, but it could show that the managers etc do not know the bulk of what she does and how long/ how complex it is, realistically. Since she was 'ok with it' in their eyes, they may have designated it to be her business. The best thing you can do is to review everything asap and see if it can be more efficient (e.g. with tech investment and less insane timetabling, in the situation I was in). If you get support for this in fairly early days, you may stand a better chance of shaping this well, but the support and understanding of the job is a key element - it's also clear to feel, if it is not really there.

I feel bad for her and think that you sound very entitled. If I were her I would be refusing to give you any more of my time. Figure it out for yourself.

Ok she is still being paid but presumably she is currently having to do her job as well as find time to hand over.

If I was to be ill or leave my job then I am sure that the next most senior person in my team could step in to my role and yes they would probably need a bit of prompting on things but I believe that they could do it - they have watched me do it for long enough, assisted me at times on most aspects etc. Surely if you got the job over existing FTP members of the team it was because they believed you could do it - were they wrong and are you maybe not quite ready for this yet?

It's hard to assess properly since we don't know what the role is and how much you should already know, but I guess we can see why there was friction. She sounds difficult and they sound like they've no idea what the job entails.

Who said that it's something to be proud of?

The fact of the matter is that very few enterprises will gladly pay for their new start to be there at the same time as the outgoing person - and the new start is is likely to be working their notice in their old position.

Tbh, I think you sound like a nightmare.

If I was your boss, and you told me what you had written here, I'd be questioning my decision and your suitability for the role.

It's not 'she isn't handing it over in enough detail' (after 15 hours, working previously in the company, having written notes provided to you..) it's that you just don't know HOW to do the job you were employed for. You should be able to pick it up and run with it. You might not get it all correct, but you should have the confidence and experience to be able to work out a plan to do it.

A role that takes 15 hours plus to hand over is either too big for one person, or the person being handed over to isn’t the right person for the role.
It’s way too much, and I understand her frustration.

Exactly. That's where the saying about a new broom sweeps clean comes from as a new head of department is meant to bring in new procedures and ideas. Could be she has been there so long that as the company has expanded its functions so actually a new department should have actually be made. 15 hours of instruction seems insane.