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Subject:RE: them responses to "them engineers" From:Chuck Martin <CMartin -at- serena -dot- com> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 25 May 2000 10:26:12 -0700
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Catherine [mailto:uma_catherine -at- usa -dot- net]
> Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2000 2:34 AM
> Subject: them responses to "them engineers"
>
<big snip>
>
> About Connie Giordano's comment "Now, if we could earn the
> same paychecks and
> the same recognition by the high mucky-mucks, we probably
> wouldn't need to
> vent so often." in response to Eddy's "Thou shalt not covet
> thy engineer's
> status."
> It doesn't bother me that engineers earn more than me for the
> simple reason
> that when they were busy slogging for their heavy engineering
> degrees I was
> lazing around devouring novels. And I never regretted that.
> :-) All I need is
> enough to build that library I've been dreaming of. Being
> with one of the best
> paymaters in town, salary is the last thing that causes me to vent.
>
Ay, but there's the rub. While you, and perhaps a significant number of
others, have come to the profession through the road of Arts & Sciences
(such as degrees in English), others, with a talent for writing, gravitated
here from the programming side. And, as I've mentioned here before, still
others (including me) *are* engineers: my degree is an engineering degree
(yup, the BSTC is from the College of Engineering), much of my in-school
training was in sciences, computer architecture, and programming, and my
ongoing education continues to focus on computer and Internet related
material (including the UNIX class I just finished--and expect to get an A
in).
Further, as you've discovered, technical communicators are often the only
ones with interest in, and sometimes experience with, HCI (Human-Computer
Interaction), another engineering discipline. While few companies consider
technical writers important enough to include in the total development
process (right from the beginnings of design, despite the lip service often
paid to that ideal), even fewer have interface and interaction designers as
a part of the development team--at any stage of the process, never mind at
the beginning when it is most needed.
For all we do, for all we can do, to have such a pay disparity simply
reinforces the difference in respect companies and project managers have for
this profession.
--
"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
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