RE: observation of tech writer status

Subject: RE: observation of tech writer status
From: KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 14:13:26 -0500




> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce Byfield [mailto:bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com]
> Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 1:35 PM

> > b) I would be doing mostly other stuff than my
> > first love, which is to write about it all.
>
> This is another logical fallacy that keeps creeping into this
> discussion. You don't have to choose between technical knowledge and
> writing skills. Having one does not exclude the other. You're paid to
> have both.

I have working knowledge. If I didn't know how bored
I would get, within the first week, I could take on
a Product Verification position tomorrow. I would not
do as good a job as the people we have now (who remain
after some staff reductions), because they have years
of specific experience. But I could do well enough to
make me more attractive than somebody with lots of
PV experience, but in a different product space.

I don't have deep knowledge that would let me debug
our designers' code, nor do I have the depth of
knowledge that would make me welcome in a brainstorming
meeting with our CTO and senior designers. I'll never
give a presentation at the RSA conference, on the
next mathematical wave in cryptographic theory... :-)

I like having working knowledge. I sometimes pick up
more, by osmosis, or because of a specific passing
fancy -- or to be "right" in an argument -- but
mostly, my interest begins to diminish after I've
achieved that working-knowledge level of comprehension.
I'm an expert next to a layman. I'm somebody who
doesn't need the acronyms explained, among the
people in the lab. But, if a subject is not intrinsically
fascinating to me, then I'm not about to devote the
time to plumb its depths, once I've reached a level
of knowledge whereby I do good work writing for
customers. By then, it's time to dig into something
else. Generalist, versus specialist. I'd be a polymath
if I had the brain-power for it, but I don't, so I'm
fine with being widely-but-not-extremely-deeply knowledgeable.

Some avoid staleness by being contractors, and changing
"employers" every few months or years. I do it by keeping
on top of the end-results of our development efforts --
there's always something new being demanded by existing
and prospective customers -- and by poking into side stuff
like replacing Windows with Linux in the company.

If that means I'd never make it in Andrew's company,
well I'll remember not to apply there and waste his
time or mine. If it came to the choice between getting
paid to install/configure/secure networks or to write
the instructions that let other people do it efficiently
and confidently, I prefer the latter.

YMMV

/kevin


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