RE: Most dreaded part of the job?

["Rebecca Downey" <rdowney -at- matrox -dot- com>]

These are in order of dread.

* staying in the job when both friends and family are laid off around you.
Gives you a rather "survivor's guilt" type feeling.

* hearing your friends have no jobs and your company is officially in a
hiring freeze.

* having nothing to do while the rest of the group is up to their ears in
work, doing 60+ hours and telling you everything is fine and they'll have a
solid spec of a product idea upon which you can work in a month or two...or
three...

* being told the software build is waiting on the Online Help. Is it
checked-in yet? Oh. <pause> Well, <pause> we're waiting on you.

* being given a copy of something for the first time that's already released
and that has a dozen or so errors in the first paragraph. Then hearing the
boss say "I'm sure our big client will love it!" when he sees you reading
the copy.

* having a SME blow up because A) you forgot he/she said something months
ago and you asked the same question again, B) you still don't get it, C) you
said "cannot be changed" instead of "Read-Only", D) some other inane
difference that only he/she can see and he won't explain it to you.

* managing your own time and resources and "guestimating" your availability
for documents you might get to write. Maybe. If your ever-expanding document
plan doesn't get the hatchet.

* checking in your latest version of a document. Getting it all nice and
neat ready to ship and then, moments after you're done and moved on to the
next priority - receiving a dozen or so bugs of the previous document which
is higher priority and so must be fixed again. I believe someone previously
called this the "death by multiple edits". Reminiscent of death by
paper-cuts.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Rebecca Downey
     Senior Technical Writer
Internet Technologies Group
     Matrox Electronic System
     New Business Media Division
Email: rdowney -at- matrox -dot- com


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