RE: A newbie question relevant to recent discussions on the divide between engineers and writers

["Kathleen" <keamac -at- cox -dot- net>]

I don't know folks, there are so many levels to these things. I have a
PhD that I didn't list because it seemed to be hurting rather than
helping when I was job hunting (it isn't in tech writing or language
:-), but the company I worked for was heavy in PhD level scientists and
engineers. I could have sworn they were thinking "who the ** does she
think she is asking those questions?", even after I'd been there over a
year, and I have a sense that I'd have gotten better responses if they
knew that I was "almost" their equal (not being an engineer, a PhD,
pshaw!). I should add that I'd adopted as much of the info as I could
about tw's getting along with engineers and developers, and really could
understand some of their constraints.

On the other hand, it's good to get feedback from other perspectives,
including Lou's, Dick's, and Eileen's. I don't know the entire context,
Barbara, but I get the sense you were trying to be very business-like
and have something in writing-I've done that myself. But when all else
failed I'd go looking people up and corner them in their office or the
hall (as nicely as possible, which sometimes was not very). So I'd
especially support Eileen's suggestion.

I hope things start going better for you. Perhaps you could broach it as
"our team effort" or ask them to lunch or something, re the thread on
getting on the good side of developers.

Best

Kathleen





-----Original Message-----
From: Lou Quillio

Dick Margulis wrote:
> I think the crux of the problem is in those three lines, plus your 
> return address ...

+1 to all of it.  It's a lot to let go of, but you almost certainly 
must.

LQ




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