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Subject:Re: Sunday's Dilbert From:"Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- STARBASECORP -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 14 Mar 1995 13:11:04 -0800
Mike Johnson writes...
> Sunday's paper here in Salt Lake City carried a Scott Adams cartoon about
> tech writing. In a nut shell, a lady writer blows up at an engineer for not
> reviewing her stuff. The engineer relents, reads the stuff, and then says,
> "These pages are blank! You've been bluffing for months!" To which the
> humiliated writer replies, "I think I'll go have a yummy compost salad with
> delicious fetid cheese."
> I didn't like the cartoon for four reasons:
[snip 4 perfectly good reasons]
Yes, Mike, I saw that one too. And the jury is still out
on whether I liked it or not. I'm kinda leaning toward *not*.
From the engineer's point of view, it portrays tech writers
as sneaky women who use big words just to befuddle those with
lesser language skills.
From the tech writer's point of view, it portrays engineers
as easy to fool in many ways. (Don't forget the last line.
The engineer warns that he's gonna look those words up!)
It certainly portrays a prevailing attitude in the industry...
That engineers and tech writers do not trust and respect
each other and work in an adversarial relationship.
Maybe it wasn't funny because it was too d**m accurate???
-Sue Gallagher
StarBase Corp, Irvine CA
sgallagher -at- starbasecorp -dot- com
