I'm ok if I just don't think (was RE: New TECHWR-L Poll Question)

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

We take you on a voyage... a voyage where up is 
down, in is out, and meanings are never quite 
what they seem.

Does anybody else's mind work this way?

Deborah Ray wrote:

> To what extent do you, a technical writer, have contact
> with the eventual users of your documents?

The short answer is that I selected "Rarely", but
could you possibly imagine the contortions I went 
through to get to that one little button ("Radio... :-)
on the web site?

>From the outset, I was fairly sure there was no way 
I'd ever justify "Always". But, that's the only 
one that didn't keep passing through my consideration. 
"How can that be?" you ask.

I'm constitutionally unable to "just pick one and 
then leave well enough alone".  In my late, lamented 
youth, I had a moderately capable brain and did well 
on tests, but never perfectly, even when well prepared. 
Why not? Because I'd second-guess myself to death, 
dammit, and run out of time.

So, what could possibly be anything but straightforward 
about the poll question and the choice of answers? For 
many of you, not a darn thing. It's black and white.
For me...  

Well, perhaps two of our customers live in this 
city, and I've only ever visited the premises of 
one of them. It helps that they are a couple of 
the bigger customers, but that leaves hundreds, 
scattered around the world that I've never visited 
and likely never will.

Mostly, I don't even correspond with them. After all, 
who is "them", exactly? Even after the layoffs, how 
many employees work for Entrust, for example? 
So, it looks like I'm a good candidate for "Never" 
as my Poll answer.

But wait, several of our people used to work for 
Entrust and/or for a couple of our other customers. 
And, hey, they're TECHNICAL!  Does that mean I 
should choose "Frequently" or "Always"?

Well, they don't actually work for the customer 
anymore, so ... am I back to choosing "Never"? 
Seems a little harsh, given how good their 
understanding is and how much I've gotten from 
them, and continue to get.

But, we have all kinds of other customers, many 
of whom don't even fall into the same categories.
I've never visited the offices of Visa corporation.
That's a "Never"...  But, of course, I have a VISA 
card and I kinda understand -- in a theoretical 
way, at least -- where/how our product fits into 
VISA's operations. Hmm. 

Well, no, I don't get any points there, because 
I don't even know where in the world the VISA 
offices live that actually buy and use our product.
I met some VISA visitors once, who were in-house 
as part of a negotiation/evaluation visit... but 
what relationship they might have with the IT 
or security folks who'll actually ignore my 
manuals... well, I don't have the foggiest.

Royal Bank?  Hey, I use their automated teller, 
right across the parking lot.  But, even the 
technician I talked to once, when she was 
there to service the machines, has nothing to 
do with OUR encryption hardware, which lives 
elsewhere in the corporation's structure. 
No joy there.  (Am I back to choosing "Never"?)

Ahh, but I monitor our Customer Support e-mail 
and I frequently ask our support reps to clarify 
what problems the customer might have encountered 
with the docs, and I pay attention to the replies 
our people send to customers, and I often 
incorporate those replies into future docs... 
Does that count?  It's not direct contact, but 
it's information direct from the front lines, 
isn't it?  (I'm not allowed to correspond directly 
with Support clients, because our corporate policy 
is to promote a *single* point of contact, and I'm 
not a member of Customer Support.)

Hmm. It took a LOT longer to write it, but all of 
that went through my brain between the time I 
read the poll question and the time I got my 
mouse over the first button... that I then 
rejected... and came back to... and rejected 
again... and.... well, you're beginning to get 
the idea.

So, anyway, I said "Rarely", but I have no idea 
if my response conveyed anything valid or 
meaningful about my situation.

Deb?  Would you have understood my situation 
from the single choice "Rarely"??
On umpty-seventh thought, I think I could have 
said "Occasionally".  Dammit.

Anybody else have that problem?

The above is analogous to how I've approached 
every poll question since I started.

I don't answer political polls or TV-rating 
polls. They never ask a question (no matter how 
many questions they ask in an attempt to bracket 
my views) that describes a situation the way I 
see/live it.    Ask me why I can't play games 
like SimCity. It's a related problem. I can't 
agree with their basic assumptions.

I can't remember the last time I witnessed an 
argument (or took part in one...  :-) in which 
I couldn't see both sides... as well as several 
*other* sides that nobody was covering at the 
time.

With all this clutter, it's a wonder I get any 
manuals written.

Does everybody else go unhesitatingly to a poll 
selection, never doubting that what the pollster 
meant is what you mean... and that your answer 
is going to convey what you wish to the pollster?

/kevin (my middle name is "Dither")

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