RE: The Illusion of Control

["walden miller" <wmiller -at- vidiom -dot- com>]

Andrew:
>There is no such thing as control. Only tolerable chaos.
>
> At some point, you have to give up the illusion of safety and
> "properness" and
> suckle the mighty risk-teet. Life is not a well-ordered process.
>
> Throw them in and let the weak sink. It is only through failure
> that one can
> appreciate and vision success.

So there is no such thing as control, and there is no such thing as chaos.
(form/chaos duality, etc.--talk to any Buddhist)  Speaking metaphysical
garbage does no one any good. So lets say for the sake of argument that
there is some chaos and control in each technical writing department.

There is training and education and self-control to help restrain the chaos
from taking over.  It is the department's problem if they do not want to
train or educate new members of the department.  The sink or swim attitude
is so ayn rand. I prefer a less fascist approach.

I currently contract to a software company that does not train its new
employees.  My company, Vidiom, has contracted 6 writers to help my client
out. We provide internal training on our client's software, processes, etc.
for our new employees. Because we are so successful, my client is sending
its new writers to me for training.  Training works.  Mentoring works.

walden miller