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> Unfortunately, for every self-motivated, responsible, unselfish
> person there
> are thousands of lazy, ineffectual, nitwits.
You left out "ugly." Seriously, though, I realize your persona here is to
be the cynical prima donna of the list, but you are overplaying it. You
could have said "dozens" or "scores" or even "hundreds," but saying
"thousands" makes you sound, well, hysterical.
A suggestion: add a signature to the end of your email that says, "I'm smart
and you're not." It will make the point much more succinctly, and I can
skip reading the entire text of your message to get to the real point of
your posts.
>However, I will say, that those kind (sic) of environment do exist. But,
they tend to
>be very high-end consulting firms. And there is a very, very high
expectations (sic)
>for excellence and results. Failure to deliver or angering a customer gets
you
>demoted and fired - quickly. And you have to have exceptional skills - well
>above that the average tech writer.
Time for a little reality check here, my friend. There are "very high-end"
consulting firms for many things--law, information technology, marketing,
mergers and acquisitions, to name a few--but there are none for "technical
writing." In order to forestall a deluge of challenges to this statement,
let me be specific. There are plenty of individual technical communication
consultants and small firms who make a decent living out there. But "very
high-end" implies, to me anyway, real money--several hundred dollars an hour
and up. That isn't happening in any technical writer's life today or any
day soon. I know some authors of technical books who do very well, but
often they are combining their writing income with technology consulting--a
different thing entirely.
Bill
-------------------------
Bill Trippe
New Millennium Publishing
1 West Foster St.
Melrose, MA 02176
781 662 6672
btrippe -at- nmpub -dot- com
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