RE: Client woes: a question to ask yourself...

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

Yeah, well...

Technology and Engineering students often resent having to 
take one measely Technical Writing course over the two to 
four years of their diploma or degree program. Yet, it's 
good for them that they do, and it's good for us that they 
do.

Unless you can count on getting into a coddled, big-company, 
documentation-team environment, then you'll find it useful 
to know a bit of practical stuff about the workings of 
business.

You know... business... the curious pass-time that creates 
your current/next job and puts dinner on the table, clothes 
on your back, a roof over your head, and a car under your 
butt...?

Resenting exposure to basic business concepts and practices 
is a lot like being resentful at the awful revelation that 
steaks and drumsticks are not extruded from some antiseptic 
meat machine into those little plastic-wrapped foam trays that 
appear in your local supermarket. 

The reality of food is that farmers grow it and slaughter 
it. The reality of jobs and paycheques is that people 
deal with each other, following relatively common business 
practices that result in sales, production and therefore 
jobs.  If you know a bit about the mysterious ways of 
business people, you can understand what motivates them, 
and have a better feel for dealing with them, and 
satisfying them, even if the only ones you meet always 
work for the same company that you do.

Or, you can go to work for government, and none of that 
matters.     (ahem... coff-coff...)

/kevin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: bryan -dot- westbrook -at- amd -dot- com [mailto:bryan -dot- westbrook -at- amd -dot- com]
> Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 3:04 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: RE: Client woes: a question to ask yourself...
> 
> 
> I'm a graduate of one technical writing program and half way 
> through another one, and I have no interest in going into 
> business for myself as a writer.
> 
> I would resent having to take a bunch of business college 
> classes for my degree because that is not what I'm going to 
> school to study.  If I wanted a business degree, I would have 
> gone into the MBA program.

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