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Yep-Yep-Yep-Yep-Yep-Yep-Yep-Yep-Yep-Yep-Yep-Yep-Yep-Yep! to Dori's
account!
For almost 4 years, I was full-time at a foreign-owned (Asian) major
industrial warehouse equipment manufacturer as the only tech writer (I
had an "assistant" but he was useless - another story, another time).
Anyway . . . the only acceptable office arrangement (by dictate of the
overseas management) was cubicles (with 4-ft walls) for all; management
simply had taller walls (7 or 8 ft tall). My cube was only partly
visible to the vp of product support who routinely called me in to his
"office" in front of all if he didn't see or hear me actively typing
away.
When I explained (over and over and over . . .) that now that the Model
XYZ, 900-page parts book was finally completed (in FrameMaker), it took
a few minutes for the pdf to generate. And seeing that the computer
terminals we were stuck with were pretty much like a house of cards
(ready to crash unexpectedly), it was better NOT to begin typing
something else until the pdf was completed, so I was simply beginning
research and gathering papers on the next product.
It was like I never said a thing. He'd complain that we were behind on
getting the manuals out (even though draft copies of several books he
needed were sitting on his desk with everything else for his review and
he routinely bypassed and deleted what he regarded as "unimportant"
e-mails reminding him to please sign off on said books).
Remember the phrase "Book smart, but no common sense"? That was him. He
knows all the in's and out's of "management", but can't fathom the sense
of my several short minutes of precautions. There's nothing like trying
to recover corrupted files for a 900-page parts book, is there?
But I've had GREAT bosses, too. Except that they are too few and hard to
find. Congratulations to those of you who have one.
-- Ken in Atlanta
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+poshedlyk=polysius -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+poshedlyk=polysius -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Dori Green
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 2:40 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Documentation estimates
Ye gods and goddesses yes, I have worked in WAY too many places where my
manager became suspicious that I was not writing if my keyboard was not
clattering. Many of these were places where I was being asked to design
entire quality management systems from scratch, in addition to writing
all of the documents needed to support those systems.
In every case it just became irritating to have them skulking around to
see if I was goofing off, and I left in short order.
I've also run into spots where a secretary has become hostile: I type,
she types, she can't see why I should get higher pay and more perks.
Instead of asking me what I do and how I got here -- and how she might
move in that direction too -- she's decided to be passive-aggressive and
engage in sabotage at every opportunity. Seems to be an occupational
hazard.
Dori Green
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