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Subject:RE: observation of tech writer status From:"Grant, Christopher" <CGrant -at- glhec -dot- org> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 31 Oct 2002 11:27:04 -0600
> My original post, however, was wondering if you, as technical
> writers, get respect from other departments but not from dev.
> In other words, the rest of the company understands your
> contributions, but development doesn't. Or, if certain
> departments see your worth and others don't (whether that
> perception is deserved or not).
Ahh - Sorry, Sean, I was thinking you were asking about the difference
between asking for respect but not getting it, and not asking for repsect
but getting it. :)
In my workplace, the respect from developers and the company as a whole is
about the same, actually. But the interesting twist is that in my case, I
think the respect must be earned first from developers before the rest of
the company agrees. That is, if I get the respect of a SME or a client, it
will have a relatively minor impact. But if I earn the respect of a
devteam, it seems like that propogates all the way up the food chain. I
think this is because (at least at my workplace) the developer's time is
very valuable (because their time is billed at the higest rate, internally),
and thus when they speak, people listen.
Chris Grant
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