The paper notebook in a fire safe is wild but I get it. My own setup is basically a sticky note taped under my keyboard with half the password written on it and the other half in my head, which means if I get hit by a bus my family is locked out forever. Your cousin getting burned by LastPass is a real thing though, when one company holds everyone's keys it only takes one bad day to ruin a million people's week. Handwriting can't get phished and nobody's brute forcing your cursive from a server farm in Russia.

Did you get a close look at whether the new wall is veneer or full brick? I ask because a ton of 2019 school additions are brick veneer over steel studs, and that changes everything about why it's cracking. The old 20s wall is probably solid multi-wythe brick, three or four layers thick, so it moves as one big mass and the joints stay put. The new one is a single layer hanging off the frame with ties, and if they didn't put enough control joints in or the flashing and weep holes got skipped, water sits in there and eats the mortar from the inside out. Stair step cracks by a gym entrance usually mean a footing or lintel issue too, not just bad buttering. Did you notice if the crack was wider at the top or pretty even the whole way up?