TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Anonymous reports: <<I have gone through one of those out-of-the-blue
downsizings. It was completely unexpected... The lesson I learned is that
being technical is not necessarily a guarantee of job security. Even on a
high level, the technical writer is often seen as the least-valuable member
of a development team and, hence, expendable.>>
It's certainly an ongoing problem; working primarily as an editor, I find it
particularly problematic, because the writers get the credit for the
well-edited results, but my work becomes invisible. But writers find it a
problem too, as you note. The only cure for the problem is visibility: if
they don't know what you do, they can't know your value to the company or to
them. I've always tried to make myself indispensable by getting involved in
so many different parts of the business that they'd have to hire an army to
replace me. (For example, to replace me at my current job, they'd have to
hire an editor, a technical writer, a translator, a Web designer, a
speechwriter, and a marketeer--among other things. All skills possible to
find in one person, but not as easily as hiring just a replacement writer. I
work directly with the lowest of the low and the highest of the high, so
_everyone_ knows what I do and appreciates it.) If you can get involved in
helping the managers who make the hiring and firing decisions, they quickly
learn how useful you are and will be more reluctant to fire you than if
you're just a line on an org chart.
<<I entered the perm market in a search of more stability and found that the
first job (admittedly at a dot-bomb) lasted 8 months before they ran out of
money. The most-recent job lasted nine months. What is permanent?>>
Nothing's permanent. Recognizing this, I wrote an article ("Prove your
worth") that will appear in an upcoming issue of STC's _Intercom_ magazine
(hopefully this summer) that provides a variety of ways of demonstrating
your value to your employer. I make no pretenses whatsoever that this
article is definitive or guaranteed to keep you employed; my hope in writing
it was to get techwhirlers thinking about ways to quantify and demonstrate
their value. What I don't cover in that article is the politics of being
involved in an organization and letting people know what you need to do.
Maybe I need to write a followup article on this topic! (Adds a note to his
task list...)
<<As a writer trying to make a living, however, I think that I have lost my
profession.>>
Interestingly enough, an upcoming guest editorial in Technical Communication
will address specifically this point.
<<After the end of ten years, I never want to see another cube farm again,
never want to listen to someone drone on about how this new system is
revolutionary, and especially never want to hear again that I am a cost the
company can live without.>>
Everyone experiences burnout after a lengthy period spent doing one thing:
in marriages, they call it the "seven-year itch"; in baseball it's the
"seventh inning stretch"; and in jobs, it seems to strike around the same
time. (<Fe>Maybe George Miller really was onto something with his "magic
number seven" thing? </Fe>) The trick to surviving these periods of ennui or
frustration or burnout is to get away from the daily grind for a time and
figure out what it is that first excited you about the profession, and focus
on that for a while. Often, the fires have died down, but the embers remain
and can be reignited with a little thought. If the culture or software
documentation and dotcoms really bother you, focus your job search on
entirely different types of organisations, with an emphasis on stable ones
that have survived the startup syndrome and offer a wide variety of topics:
the healthcare field, university research, etc. Consider marketing yourself
as a consultant (all those dotcom failures give you experience with which to
help other dotcoms avoid failure!) or a teacher (teaching young minds what
I've learned in my years of experience always reinvigorates me). Reinvent
yourself periodically and reawaken your joys in life and your career!
--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
"User's advocate" online monthly at
www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/usersadvocate.html
"In seeking wisdom, the first step is silence, the second listening, the
third remembering, the fourth practicing, the fifth -- teaching
others."--Ibn Gabirol, poet and philosopher (c. 1022-1058)
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