Soliciting opinions - What would you do - LONG

["Teresa Scheuerman" <t_scheuerman -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

Please bare with me as I describe the situation:

I work with one other technical writer at a software company. We are in a 
recently formed department called "Education and Documentation" which is a 
subdepartment of Client Services (encompassing Client Support, Client Care, 
and Education and Documentation). There are two "trainers" in this 
department.

Our product is quite complex and both of the trainers moved to training from 
implementation and consulting. Therefore, they know the ins and outs quite 
well (including a lot of information that the trainees don't need). I've 
been with this company for six months. The other writer has been here for a 
year and a half. She inherited the user's guide and installation guide from 
a contract writer and is the main author on these documents. We have another 
product coming out soon but no documentation has been done yet.

Since I was hired, the main priority of this department has been the 
development of introductory training materials on our main product. I spent 
the first month training and familiarizing myself with the company, the 
industry we are targeting, and the software. I worked for a short time on an 
industry-specific training guide (a work in progress). While I was doing 
this, the trainers started writing the training materials. When they 
finished (long past deadlines due to their ongoing involvement in support 
and implementation issues) their  large lump of "writing" was passed onto 
the technical writers. I had created a FrameMaker template and the trainers 
wrote the materials in Word. Only the writers have FrameMaker. As writers, 
our tasks over the next several months were:

a) import documents into FrameMaker
b) format documents so they work in the template
c) import screen shots (and recapture the poor quality captures, of which 
there were numerous)
d) edit the less than stellar writing of the trainers.

We thought this was the end. The understanding was that the trainers have to 
do the writing to save time (i.e. there is a time crunch so it's easier for 
them to write rather than us getting the info from them...oh and they're 
trainers and we don't have the background to write educational materials).

We are now converting the user guides from Word to Frame (to save future 
headaches, etc.). This will be complete by the end of March. Talk has now 
turned to the development of the advanced training materials which the 
trainers are scoping out (when they find time between support calls and 
implementation issues). To give you an example of what we're facing, this is 
an e-mail from one trainer to the writers and our manager:

"Developer and I have discussed advanced application and created the frame. 
She will not have time to create the materials, so I will be working on this 
and she will review it before it goes to technical writing. My timeline is 
to have it completed by March 25. This should give writer and writer enough 
time to play with it. If not, let me know, and I can try to bump up the 
timeline."

So you see that it looks like our task will again be that of glorified copy 
editor and desktop publisher. The other writer and I have come to realize 
that our role is not as it should be and we are not happy. In fact we don't 
think we should even be in this department, and that we belong more in 
Research and Development. There are many other documentation projects that 
need to be done in other parts of the company. There are only two writers so 
the support people end up writing their own work. It appears like an endless 
loop.

After this long-winded introduction, I ask you - how would you approach this 
situation so as to:

a) define your role the way it ought to be (i.e. actually writing material, 
not editing poor writing)
b) counter the argument of "you don't have a teaching background" (the 
obvious counter being "you don't have a writing background")
c) shift yourself out of "education" and more generally into "documentation" 
or "publications" (perhaps within R&D).
d) not offend anyone (Our manager is really very good but we just think she 
doesn't understand what we (can) do and so can't support us. Plus she is 
going on maternity leave in the end of April and do not yet know who we will 
report to. It is possible one of the trainers will become interim "manager". 
You can understand the implications of this, I'm sure).

I appreciate any and all opinions/suggestions/advice.

Thanking you in advance.

Teresa

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