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Subject:RE: How to fend off a Technical writer From:Kathy Frost <KFrost -at- Partnerware -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 13 May 2002 10:29:08 -0500
My story is similar to "don't darken my door again."
The development team had been programming and revising things for nearly 6
weeks since the original review. When the technical writer for that manual
asked for the final review, she was told "You have wasted enough of my
people's time. Just write it up and send it out." He didn't seem to be
bothered by the fact that the documentation no longer matched the product.
Then this incompetent, but self-proclaimed genius, decided to institute a
"liaison program." We had a large product with many sub-applications and
there were nine writers on the team to cover the various sections. Each
writer was very familiar with the phase of the product they were writing
about, both from a technical standpoint and the end user view.
We were told not to talk to individual programmers but to ask all our
questions of one, very busy programmer, have her leave her own coding to go
interrupt the other programmers long enough to understand the problem and
their solution, then come back and explain it to each of us. I'm sure the
development manager saw some kind of time and frustration savings in this
plan but the writers never could.
Kathy Frost
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