RE: Techwriters of the World: Unite!

["Jason Deal" <jason -at- mitratech -dot- com>]

Not to be argumentative, but what the heck... maybe 8 years of experience
isn't senior-level anymore.  If a glut of techwriters are entering the
market, your level of experience changes.  Your level of experience is not
absolute, it's relative to the candidates you're competing against.
Also, I just entered a junior-level job with two years of experience and a
few manuals under my belt (one completely my work, no team involved), and I
apparently beat out a lot of software developers vying for the position.
That adds two complicating factors; wage standards for technical writers are
determined by their value compared to the value of other employees, and
more candidates enter the job pool for our positions.  If programmers are
getting downsized too, then we have no more right to our old wages than they
do.  And don't give me the argument that we can write and programmers can't.
Though it may be true, very few companies I've seen have recognized that a
writer writing is more valuable than a programmer writing.  I got my
position because I can write technical documentation AND program.


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