TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Brute* "call me Caesar" Byfield observed: <<I believe in collective action,
but when I consider the backstabbing and exploitation that are the norm in
the STC (which you'd think would have at least a tendency to believe in
solidarity), I have no faith that many other writers would do the same for
me.>>
* For the non-classically inclined: "Et tu, Brute?" was Caesar's closing
line when he discovered that his trusted Brutus (the anglicized form of the
Latin Brute) had knifed him too, along with the others who had lined up to
make Caesar salad.
For what it's worth, I've been a member for 11 years now, and my back
remains unpierced. The same can be said of all the STC colleagues I
currently stay in touch with--and have been in touch with for much of the
time I've been a member. It seems likely that Bruce, like the late Andrew
Plato, once had a bad experience with STC and has chosen to overgeneralize
that experience to the entire organisation. Tsk.
Any large organization develops internal politics, and typically, the more
aggressive folks indulge most heavily in those politics. I don't doubt there
are bad apples in any bunch, and the larger the bunch, the more of them
you'll find, so with 25 000 members, STC undoubtedly has a few aggressively
bad apples. I have yet to meet them, but don't doubt for a minute they're
out there. But let's be realistic here folks. "The norm?" I don't think so.
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"User's advocate" online monthly at
www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/usersadvocate.html
"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."--Goethe
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Your monthly sponsorship message here reaches more than
5000 technical writers, providing 2,500,000+ monthly impressions.
Contact Eric (ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com) for details and availability.
Check out RoboDemo for tutorials! It makes creating full-motion software
demonstrations and other onscreen support materials easy and intuitive.
Need RoboHelp? Save $100 on RoboHelp Office in May with our mail-in rebate.
Go to http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
