Criticizing Writers - What Would You Have Done?

[Steve Nichols <writer -dot- nichols -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Sometimes a flame gun is justified, but I don't think being a tech
writer has much to do with it. Sometimes you just can't help being
critical of some of the people you work with.  It might be about how
they do their work, or in my case, how they DIDN'T do their work.

In one position I contracted at, I observed blatant abuse of company
time and resources by a few writers. Their actions cast a bad light on
the entire group, seriously affecting morale, and they bothered
everyone else in the process. The biggest problems were talking,
surfing the web, and writing personal email, to the point that
deadlines were missed on more than one occasion. Loud personal phone
calls that carried over the cubicle walls and clearly heard by
everyone were common. Multiple times a day they'd be observed in
personal conversations that were clearly not related to work, and
often lasting 30 minutes or more. Sometimes there would be a sudden
eruption of laughter from them that would startle everyone within 50
feet. (Nothing we wrote about was that funny.)  On more than one
occasion, one of them was seen typing long emails into Notepad, and
then cutting and pasting them into a Hotmail account on the web.  This
person honestly thought this trick concealed how much time was spent
emailing.  Everyone in the department (sans management) knew they did
it, and they were a laughingstock because of it.

The troublemakers eventually became a constant topic of discussion
among the other writers, (email, water cooler, etc.) because of how
they covered up most of it from management, and resentment was high.
At the last minute before a deadline, the offenders would put in an
effort and come up with something to show (but of poor quality), or
someone else had to be pulled off their project to help.

Management was seated elsewhere, so unless they happened to be in the
area, they didn't see this happening. Eventually others in the company
who were affected by the noise levels started to complain, but by that
time my contract was ending. The most that happened before I left was
reminders from management to "be considerate of your neighbors."

I've wondered since then what the most effective way to approach
management about this would have been.   What would you have done?

Steve

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