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Subject:Re: career advice please! From:Lonestar <lonestar -at- NESMA -dot- NET -dot- SA> Date:Wed, 18 Aug 1999 00:19:28 +0300
SAMANTHA WROTE:
"Long-term, I am hoping to work in a large IT firm as a technical
writer/information designer. I guess my dream would be IBM, Microsoft, or a
large software company. Could people possibly let me know how they think I
could get to this goal?"
Samantha, as one who has grown up the trellis from a junior technical
writer, to senior technical writer, to technical writer lead, to editor, and
ultimately to documentation manager (I see there has been a lot of talk
lately about 'tham thar folk'), I have one question: why on earth do you
want to work for a behemoth corporation? Having been in the business of
imparting and institutionalizing knowledge for well known and lesser known
corporations, I can advise you that the lesser known can provide greater
opportunities and more satisfying experiences, and still endue you
professionally. I will not mention certain corporate names to avoid
aspersing their well manicured reputations, but take it on faith that many
do not treat their writing staffs better than Pharaoh probably treated his
scribes. Compare this to smaller corporations that treat their technical
writers like gods. You might be asking, "How does he know this?" The answer:
because as a consultant I end up playing the role of father confessor. I
hear stories from writing staffs in each one of these companies. Without
exception (no, this is not hyperbole) the worst experiences are retold in
the well known, big at the girth, corps--the best and most satisfying at the
smaller, leaner, quiet in the market place, ones. If the hope is that you
will improve your earning power by being employed by a large concern, think
again. It wont. I have found that the best remunerated writers are actually
in the small corps you probably drive by every day. For example, there is a
small telephony corp that pays better than Lucent. Their is a small vertical
software market corp that pays better - and has an extremely handsome profit
sharing plan - than Microsoft. There is a small apparel corp that pays much,
much better than Hanes or Fruit of the Loom. The comparisons are endless.
But I made an assumption that may be egregious. You may want to work for one
of the "big boys" for prestige. You know, like the scribe boasting he works
for Pharaoh. If so, that's understandable. Good luck.
;-)
JB
aka Inkhorn
