Re: How to appease a consultant?

[Andrew Plato <intrepid_es -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

"Lady Lurker" wrote...

> The programmers are great, as well as the project managers.  The
> consultant technical writer, however, is another story.

Oh those darn consultants. :-)

> Well, I tried to be diplomatic but I really thought what 
> he'd written was a piece of crap.  It's an installation guide
> without detailed steps, he had all the steps listed in one
> very long sentence, followed by screen captures 
> without headings.  The screen shots are not referenced 
> anywhere in the text.
> He also has cautions and warnings intermingled throughout the text. He 
> describes in another sentence after the screen shots what will happen
> if you don't perform the action/task for EACH tasks. He never mentions
> the product by name anywhere in the guide either.

Sounds like he's a dolt. There are plenty of these writers. They've been
around for a decade or so, their skills have weakened, so they compensate
for their lack of skill with attitude and self-promotion. I love it when
people "remind" you of their immense amount of experience while your
editing/repairing their work. Like all their experience makes them immune
from making mistakes (or being questioned). 

> The larger problem is the documentation IS crap and, although the
> company is happy because "it's better than nothing", after he leaves, 
> I'm the one stuck with actually improving it all.

Yes, you will be stuck with this. So you need to take control here. 

Start isolating yourself from the consultant. Make the divisions between
YOUR work and HIS work very clean and clear. Make the point that it is
better, from a consistency perspective, to have ONE writer produce a
doc-set. This should fly with everybody (because it does actually make
sense). But the underlying intention is to draw a sharp contrast between
your work and his work.

This will make his work be sharply different from your work. Your work
will look great compared to his, and they'll send him packing. 

I had a very similar problem, but in reverse, about 4 years ago. I went to
work for a company whose internal (full-time) tech writers were basically
gerbils. They did nothing but run in circles on wheels all day. I was
hired because I had extensive experience with Windows NT, SQL Server, and
other technologies they were using for the project. When I tried to
improve the documents and make them technically correct, the rodent
writers started feeling dumb and took out their frustrations on me.  The
only way to get out of there and get the job done was to draw a clean line
between "my work" and "their work". 

Thus, the engineers would get documents from them - that sucked and
documents from me that rocked. Engineers wanted me to stay (offered me a
full-time job), writers wanted me to go (which I did). 

The point is, the only way to truly "win" against ego-queens is to hang
them out to dry. Don't let yourself get caught in their passive-aggressive
web. They want your attention and respect and they honestly believe that
because they have been here on earth longer than you, they are instantly
entitled to it.  They aren't. You need to disassociate yourself from the
person and let that person be their own worst enemy. 

> I don't want to run like the wind (tech jobs here for native speakers
> are a-plenty) because I've never spent less than two years on any job.
>  Can someone give me any ideas on how to appease him?

Don't appease - disassociate.  Ego-queens are like children. They have an
underdeveloped set of emotions. If you appease a child throwing a tantrum,
the child will continue to throw tantrums to get his/her way. If you
ignore a tantrum child, eventually he/she will burn out and fall asleep
(my parents taught me this trick!) 

Lastly, make sure to maintain strong and healthy relationships with your
other co-workers, especially your boss and the engineers.  Talk with them,
meet with them regularly, and tell them you just want to do the best job
possible. Focus on the products and technologies - not the writing
aspects. Engineers don't relate well over things like FrameMaker. They
want to talk about the technology and their designs. Take an active role
in learning, using, and mastering their products. 

Don't even acknowledge the moron consultant. You need to build your own
relationships in the company that are 100% free of any involvement from
the consultant. 

I would not recommend asking for a joint meeting to discuss the issue with
your boss and the consultant. It will just flare the issue and the
consultant will begin a "guerilla campaign" against you. He'll be nice to
your face, but undermining you behind you back. He has already shown a
propensity to do that. 

You need to rise above the issue and control the situation yourself. Don't
expect your boss or anybody else to have your best interest in mind. They
don't care and if you whine about this, you'll be seen as a troublemaker. 

You control this situation as much as he does.  Don't play the
passive-aggressive game. 

Good luck. 

----------------------------------------
Andrew Plato
President / Principal Consultant
Anitian Corporation
www.anitian.com
Office: 503-644-5656
Cell: 503-201-0821
Yahoo Pager: Anitian
----------------------------------------

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com

TECH*COMM 2001 Conference, July 15-18 in Washington, DC
The Help Technology Conference, August 21-24 in Boston, MA
Details and online registration at http://www.SolutionsEvents.com


---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.