RE: What's a girl to do?

[Chuck Martin <CMartin -at- serena -dot- com>]

I would send my manager alone the rant (as I have done before. 

Then I would probably respond (to all, so that all the other managers get
copies), that the text is not "OK." I probably wouldn't be specific, but
rather generic, saying that editing needed to be done, and giving an
estimate of the time needed to do that editing. Emphasize that you need to
make sure that the message is clear and consistent, and that the style
matches the rest of the documentation and collateral.

Then let the people involved draw their own conclusions.

--
"I don't entirely understand it but it is true: Highly skilled carpenters
don't get insulted when told they are not architects, but highly skilled
programmers do get insulted when they are told they are not UI designers."
     - anonymous programmer quoted in "GUI Bloopers"
       by Jeff Johnson

Chuck Martin, Sr. Technical Writer
cmartin -at- serena -dot- com 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wlewis -at- nclogic -dot- com [mailto:wlewis -at- nclogic -dot- com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2000 1:20 PM
> Subject: What's a girl to do?
> 
> I'm frustrated and you have been elected to hear it.
> 
> Our new corporate marketing person just sent me, and a few of 
> the managers,
> Release Notes that he just wrote for the latest release of 
> our software,
> with a note of "is this ok?".
> 

> He mentioned that he took it straight from the text that I 
> sent him with a
> few changes. I don't know where he got the original text, 
> because the only
> thing I recognize are the topics. Rather than spending a week 
> rewriting it,
> insulting the man, putting the schedule behind, and giving 
> myself more of a
> reputation than I need at corporate, I think I'll send him 
> back a note that
> says...
> 
> "Other than the inconsistency of tense, gross overuse of 
> passive voice,
> unnecessarily large words, technical jargon, sentences that 
> should be broken
> into *paragraphs*, and stressing the unimportant details over 
> the major
> improvements, yea... it's fine!"
> 
> What would you do?
> 



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