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Sharon Burton-Hardin wrote:
>
>I was brought into a client to help establish the standards - tools etc -
>for an existing tech pubs group. I decided to use the MS style guide because
>that was the one I chose. The manager of the group and her boss thought that
>was fine. I created the Frame templates for the writers, again with the
>approval of the higher ups. (the group had never had either a consistent
>look or a style guide) Decisions made, let's implement them.
>
>We had one writer who consistently fought me. She didn't agree with the
>style guide. She didn't like the template and wanted to make her own
>changes. I just kept telling her - in the nicest possible way - that it was
>nice that she didn't like these things. But it didn't matter because these
>were the standards the group was using. When she went home, she could write
>her own stuff using any template she liked, with any style guide she liked.
>But while she was working for her employer, this was the way it was. Period.
On the other side of the fence, I was at a company a few years ago where
the most junior writer in the group managed to subvert things to get her
way on the style guide. She had been with the company longer than any of
the senior writers, so she knew how to play the internal politics better
than we did. There were several items in it I rather strongly found
offensive that she managed to railroad through by arranging for the graphic
artist (who could barely put together a sentence) and half the programming
team (who didn't know pubs standards) votes on the tech pubs style guide.
Rather than fight it and make enemies of the other senior personnel, I
followed it, finished my project, and left for another job.
--Lynn
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