bad leadership and tech writing

Subject: bad leadership and tech writing
From: julie brodeur/mccready <jool -at- petting-zoo -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 12:30:13 -0800 (PST)

Arg. I was just in a meeting where an engineer said, "...and the
documentation for it is just terrible, but there's nothing we can really
do because the engineer is in another department."

It just irked me, because my company has decentralized the Tech Pubs
department with a reorg, and now we all report directly to engineering or
operations managers.

Since we lost the sense of a cohesive group, all my work has been really
unfocused. I've been disinterested in working because it seems like no
matter what I do, my end product will be ugly and unuseful to its readers.

I'm not really sure what to do aside from finding a new job -- but the job
market is pretty tight these days, so I feel stuck.

I would tell my manager how I feel, but all the people in a position to
help need a concrete description of what the problem is...which I have no
idea how to relate. My best stab at it is that there is no real leadership
where someone defines a project, makes sure all the right people are at
the right meetings, and so on. There are lots of little things happening
and work gets done...but no one is identifying the work that I need to get
done (other than myself). My readers end up writing their own notes for
their documentation and don't work with me or possibly even need me. But
then there's some engineering person who says they needed a document on
something that wasn't written....

Any tips/support/ideas appreciated.

Many thanks.

-julie


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