Re: Like long hours?

[Kevin McLauchlan <kmclauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com>]

We recently took a 10% across-the-board salary cut 
(three months after our execs did the same thing), so 
there's no way I'm getting any underlings.

Usually, I don't need any help. The workload is light 
and/or manageable, until a major product release, 
at which time there's a week-or-four of long hours. Then, it 
eases off for a few months.

This last time, there were so many last-minute (and even 
post-last-minute) changes that I found myself pulling a 
bunch of all-nighters to get the document set ready for 
our major new product release.

I could see my performance deteriorating, and it was 
obvious that I was well past the point of diminishing 
returns in the game of "just work extra hours". Even 
worse, were signs that my health was suffering (I'm 
a little over a year away from the big 50, and I don't 
bounce back from 40-hour days the way I could as 
a college kid).

I took my immediate boss aside and laid out the 
situation. If something doesn't give, then I'll be down 
with the flu or worse (blood pressure well into the 
high danger range), and I won't even be in any 
condition to hand off to a temp. The project is at 
risk.  And did I mention that I'm the only FrameMaker 
user in the place?

We decided that there were two options:

1) Draw a line in the sand and just declare that any 
   more changes to the doc-set would have to wait 
   until the next release.

2) Have me keep pounding at the core docs, and 
    hand off some lighter ones to somebody else.

The problem with the first approach was that the 
interface and other aspects of the product were 
being changed as I and Product Verification and 
Customer Support were finally getting systems 
to work with, so the docs could literally look like 
they were written for a different product unless 
they were revised. And, our lead customers had 
made a point of demanding accurate, usable docs.

The problem with the second approach was that I'm 
the only writer, and all the other technical folk 
(developers, testers, etc.) were in frantic high-gear 
on their own parts of the project. Though some were 
capable of decent writing, none could spare the time.

Hmm. Not good.

So, we went to Product Line Management and laid 
out the problem (they, by the way, were part of 
the problem...:-).

However, it turns out that they were also part of the 
solution. A marketing guy who had recently wrapped 
up another project was just about to spend some 
time learning the new product. He volunteered to 
take on some quick-start guides (that I had been 
leaving until last). My role became that of editor 
for him. He also conveyed some of his impressions 
and difficulties as a new/naive user, to me, so 
that my own big docs benefitted.

As well, by virtue of their increased involvement in 
the technical and tech-docs end of the project, the 
PLM folks saw fit to "find" me an additional day, with 
some creative revision of the schedule.

We did it, and I lived.

Customers are so impressed with the product, so 
far, that we can already see the end of the pay cut 
moving closer.

Maybe this kind of co-operative spirit and effort 
would be less likely at a larger company -- we're 
fewer than 80 people.

My two cents...... minus ten percent...

/kevin

-- 
** DIR-ty DEEDS, and they're DONE dirt cheap. (Sing it, 
now...)
    


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