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I was put in the position you described. There are many variables to
consider. When you add a writer, in addition to relieving some of the
pressure of your workload, you relinquish some control of your output. If
they add a writer, will it be a democracy, or will you have
decision-making control? It's something to thing about BEFORE you recruit.
Do you need "another you" or do you need a junior writer who will be your
subordinate, to help with grunt work?
Stay in touch with your managers. Keep track of your output, and be able
to document increased demand for your labors. I was fortunate enough to
have a boss that told me "let me know if your workload starts to be more
than you can handle." When I finally did so, he allowed me to create a job
description for the kind of help I needed (in my case I was going to
supervise the additional resource), which he then approved and got us a
budget to accomodate.
I thought long and hard before issuing my cry for help to my manager. I'm
a bit of a control freak, and was not eager to let go of the little empire
I had built. We ended up hiring a colleague of mine whom I referred to the
position, so the loss of control was not major.
Another approach is to bring in a gunslinger - somebody with far MORE
experience than you, and let their expertise add to your newly-formed
team's horsepower. My previous doc team did that, bringing in a writer far
better and more experienced than us, and I'm so glad we did - I learned SO
much from her!
To sum up: quantify your workload, establish some expectation of growth
with your manager (so you don't suddenly demand more resources with no
prior warning), and decide what kind of assistance would be most
appropriate.
Good luck!
- Keith Cronin
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