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>>>If you were to list the five most stressful aspects of being a technical
writer (from most to least stressful), what items would you list?<<<
1. Managers who can't manage
2. Non-writers who try to tell you how to write
3. Colleagues who want you to hold their hand for them rather than dive
in and learn something.
4. Trying to think about five stressful aspects of being a technical
writer.
Tight deadlines, high pressure, no information, etc no hassle, that is what
makes the hours fly. They are a fact of life in any job and quite frankly
not worth breaking into a sweat over. The more you panic, the harder things
become and the more mistakes you make. A few hours spent planning at the
front end before diving in has surprising results on the time it takes to
complete the task.
>>>Are there any specific strategies you use to cope with work stress?<<<
1. Learn to laugh at yourself, others do so why not join them?
2. Stop feeling so self important, you are a small cog in a larger
machine and everyone is not waiting on your opinion, so don't get uptight
when they won't jump to adopt your ideas. If something really doesn't seem
right put it in writing and send it to everyone who needs to know, if they
choose to ignore your advice and it turns to rats**t, just pull out the
letter and say 'I told you so'. Maybe next time they will listen but don't
lose any sleep over it.
3. Stop worrying about your tools, a bad work person always blames
their tools.
4. When things are going bad, do something else and then come back to
it. It's surprising how easy the solution then becomes.
5. Eat, Drink (non-alcoholic of course) and be merry for
tomorrow.......who knows!
John Nutting
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A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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