Re: TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY

Subject: Re: TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY
From: Barry House <bhouse -at- CREATIVE-HOUSE -dot- COM>
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:16:41 -0600

Jane Bergen wrote:

>
>This question leads me to another....how many of you, when interviewing,
>ask to see (if not offered a tour) the work facilities in which you
>would be doing your technical writing? I heard a horror story about a
>tech writer who quit a not-too-bad job for one he thought was better (a
>start-up company with decent looking corporate offices, developing
>hardware that used cutting-edge technology, etc.). It turned out that
>the company hiring him didn't have a clue about what a tech writer needs
>or does specifically. He was put in a windowless room with a 386, amber
>monitor, and a DOS-based word processor. The guys upstairs (developers)
>had the best equipment but they didn't think the writer needed it
>because "all he did was write"! He lasted two weeks (just long enough to
>line up something else). What a nightmare. It gave me chills hearing it.
>

That's typical of the prevailing management attitudes 9-10 years ago. In
1988 I was assigned to the contracting arm of the company I worked for, and
was teamed with three other writers on a project for an outside client. We
were each issued a rented PC turbo with a color monitor but no graphics
card. We were all writing documentation in a DOS version of WordPerfect.

At the end of the project, after we had bullied management into buying
HiJaak for screen dumps and Ventura Publisher for layout work, we learned
that the client wanted all the user documentation on disk in Macintosh
format. The kicker is that all four of us were very experienced Mac users!
Although the project manager knew about the Mac requirement, he never asked
us if we could use the machines or would prefer them to the level of PC we
were given.

Barry House
The Creative House--Helping Businesses Communicate
P.O. Box 523
Pittsfield, IL 62363
217-285-2900
217-285-2950 Fax
http://www.creative-house.com




Previous by Author: Re: TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY
Next by Author: Re: Website design costs
Previous by Thread: Re: TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY
Next by Thread: Re: TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads