Re: Stalking the wiley tech writer

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>]

Sharon Burton-Hardin wrote:
> 
> Oh, do we ever have similar status. People in the village are happy to have
> one but no one really knows why we are there or what we are doing. We don't
> know anything useful (to the natives) but seem excited about everything.
> Everything. Anything.

Sounds like my general adjustment to life. It's either that, or
believe that the average person is a couple of guppies short of
an aquarium (or a peanut cluster and a vanilla cream short of a
box of chocolate, take your choice).

Seriously, it's not a bad approach. It keeps you humble. More
importantly, it's a way to fit in while remaining analytical. I
remember reading the autobiography of Margaret Meade and Gregory
Bateson's daughter, in which she recalls becoming reconciled to
the need to wear high heels and lipstick after her parents told
her that it was important to know the customs of the tribe that
you're associating with.

To wrench the subject bodily back to tech-writing, I try to take
this advice to heart. For example, I find that I've often had
good results from the geeks from saying, "I'm the one who asks
the dumb questions for everyone else." 

It's a sort of pre-emptive strike. The geeks expect the average
tech-writer to be dumb, but they can't use it as an insult if
you've just cheerily insulted yourself.

-- 
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
"The Open Road" column, Maximum Linux
3015 Aries Place, Burnaby, BC V3J 7E8, Canada
bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7189

"I should have known it from the start,
It's not the truth that really matters,
The real world tramples on such things,
Leaves your mental state in tatters."
-James Keelaghan, "Small Rebellions"