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Subject:RE: Lazy and Unambitious From:"Sean O'Donoghue (EPA)" <Sean.O'Donoghue -at- ericsson -dot- com -dot- au> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 9 Aug 2001 09:11:00 +1000
Hi all,
I think Bruce has encapsulated everything here. Including the person
inquiring if they should have a "greater job title and position" equal to
the Development Manager...and those who are seeking to be called "Senior
Technical Writers".
If you are not moving from a company being called Senior Technical Writer is
not likely to increase your pay - and definitely won't increase your skills
or respect for your work around the office. If you are a smuck, or a cad - a
new title at work won't help; if you have their respect it doesn't matter
what you are called (except perhaps if you are a man called Sue but that's
another song...)
IF we had a benevolent technical writer as CEO we would ensure all our staff
worked less time, and received more than they deserved in remuneration, and
back massages, and childcare, and free drinks, and the latest technology for
everyone.......
yep it ain't going to happen.
The class struggle will not be completed till all are referred to as
writers. Finance staff would be writers - they write cheques, and accounts.
Software writers would write software and programs that work most of the
time. CEOs would be writers and write strategy and takeover bids. Technical
Writers would write.
In the world where all are writers, the writer is King (think I have got
away from Engels and Marx into the monarchy and feudalism, but the good news
is we end up top!).
Hope this helps us all - it isn't that we are lazy and unambitious it is
just that the world is not a single class/term state where everyone is a
writer (of course Andrew Plato and a few others would STILL seek to be
Senior Technical Writers....)
regards and thanks,
Sean O'Donoghue-Hayes
> I suppose that what I'm getting at is a class difference - an
> unfashionable concept, but one that is sometimes useful, even if Marx
> and Engels were less accurate than Nostradamus or Mother Shipton when it
> came to prophecy.
>
>
>
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