RE: Alone from the start (was: Documentation planning) - a true s tory!!!!

["Sean O'Donoghue-Hayes (EAA)" <Sean.O'Donoghue-Hayes -at- ericsson -dot- com -dot- au>]

Milan said:
}}Has anyone on this list been the lone writer on their
}}*very first* job (i.e. working in-house) or project?
}}If you had to do it again, would you still plunge in
}}or would you wait for a gig that put you in the
}} company of other more experienced writers?


Oh, Oh, Oh pick me! Pick me!!!! I can reply to that!!!!

well I recall when I started out.....I'd admit I had done some "technical"
writing, but that was more as a hobby at the job I was employed
in....keeping some Computer Operations procedures up to date....and then I
snuck sideways into a job where they let me do a little online help
files....again more as a hobby rather than a position at the employer...then
I had just completed my TW Grad Cert...and decided I want a position as a
technical writer doing this stuff fulltime....so I told them...and they told
me....ahh forget it - we don't need that position....

so I looked, and applied, and got an interview....that went for two and a
half hours, and for the first five minutes we spoke about the job - for the
rest of the time we spoke about hockey.....and I was hired! The outgoing
technical writer was a contractor - and she had got a plum new
contract.....and I had a permanent role...the handover was interesting, over
coffee primarily, usually in a cafe, usually discussing who would talk to
the TW and who wouldn't.....there was practically no documentation....a few
policies, one half completed template.....but I didn't have to worry, there
was only a 120 people in the company, about five different products, I had
never written a user manual before, had no one to guide me, and whilst I
knew about computers knew nothing, or practically nothing, about
telecommunications.....

I survived....and that company prospered (those two items maybe linked
;-)....I left and took several other positions...I had been there for three
years....when I left they had about five TWs....trying to cover what I had
been doing single-handedly - why did I succeed. Because somehow, quite
insanely, I believed when I had been doing other jobs that I COULD write
better documentation than the "guff" I was usually given to use....and I
love writing....and the job before that was so easy and thus so boring that
I didn't want to go backwards....did I make mistakes??? I must have. Did
anyone notice....well I don't think so....because my attitude was let's fix
it, let's move on...that's not a roadblock, it's a speed hump - let's just
accelerate and pray :-)

So hope that helps anyone considering being a lone technical writer - and in
a team I think you are both closeted from the "real" world and open
to....hyper-critical editing by your peers at too early a stage....you must
have the freedom to unfurl and use your wings, else forever you will be
clipped....

and yes I would take the same journey again, even if it is the road less
travelled.... 

<<if you want the book "My Brill Career!" wait for next year - the movie has
me played by....oh gee is ANYONE up to that task in Hollywood ;-) >>


regards and thanks, 
Sean O'Donoghue-Hayes

<<insert witty sig here - or imagine one - if you can....>>

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