Re: Technical Writers Don't Laugh Enough

[Len Olszewski <saslpo -at- UNX -dot- SAS -dot- COM>]

Elizabeth Vollbach asks a very good question:

>      Why do so many of us technical writers have to take ourselves so
>      seriously?  Because we can laugh at different aspects of our
>      profession or of documentation, we aren't belittling technical
>      writing; we're enjoying it.

When you deal with a wide variety of people, you are dealing with a wide
variety of issues which each feels is *not* funny. It's not so much
that, as a group, technical writers are more serious than the population
at large. As *people*, we each have beliefs which each of us has decided
is not the proper fodder for humor. (To show I'm not like that, let me
point out that there are certain things I feel are not the proper mudder
for humor, even though they may be the right fodder, but I digress.)

It would be nice if people were less stressed, more laid back, able to
look at the humorous side of things, less inclined to criticize, etc.
Reality has a way of stopping all of that, sometimes.

BTW, I chuckled at Levinson's throw away about the coat hanger on the
icon. I suppose other folks didn't think that was funny at all. I can't
blame them. I just can't be that way; and they apparently can't be the
way I am. Oh well.

|Len Olszewski, Technical Writer |"That boy's about as sharp as a sack|
|saslpo -at- unx -dot- sas -dot- com|Cary, NC, USA|o' wet mice." - Foghorn Leghorn     |
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| Opinions this ludicrous are mine. Reasonable opinions will cost you.|