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Contractors can definitely gross six-figures, but that is not commensurate with a salary. The journalist may not have understood that. (Contractors' expenses and benefits come out of their gross.)
It's been a while since I've seen an STC salary survey. However, it seems to me that getting up around six figures required a combination of a large number of years of experience, an advanced degree, managing a large and/or distributed team, and being of the correct gender. (That ought to get the fingers flying.) 'Fess up, Candis, you had three of those four in that job as I remember. ;) And, because of the slide in the stature of the profession, highly paid TW jobs at any level are hard to come by, though the hassles remain the same.
I hear that there will be a shortage of TW's in the future. I wonder what the profession will be like then. Some of the shortage will be generated by senior people who worked hard to leave the field as salaries, rates, and the professional stature of the field slid.
That said, I'll go back to my business systems analyst corner now.
-- Jean
Condo, Candis wrote:
> I do remember making a six-figure salary when I was the tech pubs manager at a software/hardware company here in Portland, Oregon but that was about 5 years ago. I managed writers at multiple sites and had to travel some but not alot. That company has long since died (run into the ground by greedy senior management) and I am back to being a senior tech writer at the much lower salary. I was the manager there for about 5 years.
>
> Candis L Condo
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: techwr-l-bounces+ccondo=c-cor -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com on behalf of Gene Kim-Eng
> Sent: Mon 5/7/2007 10:02 AM
> To: ekarenski-techwrl -at- yahoo -dot- com; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Re: Forbes: 10 surprising 6-figure jobs
>
>
>
> I flipped through this highly annoying slideshow for some
> time to find the slide about technical writers, and I would
> say it's fairly accurate in its citing of Silicon Valley as the
> location where writers can get six-figure salaries. There
> are other tech centers, of course, but SV continues to be
> the biggest. But also be sure to note the other slide where
> it mentions the fact that in another part of the US one can
> enjoy the same standard of living for $40k per year less.
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Karen" <ekarenski-techwrl -at- yahoo -dot- com>
>
> > My question: what planet are they on? or what planet should I be moving too?
>
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