RE: observation of tech writer status

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce Byfield [mailto:bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com]
> Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 1:35 PM

> > b) I would be doing mostly other stuff than my 
> >    first love, which is to write about it all.
> 
> This is another logical fallacy that keeps creeping into this 
> discussion. You don't have to choose between technical knowledge and 
> writing skills. Having one does not exclude the other. You're paid to 
> have both.

I have working knowledge. If I didn't know how bored 
I would get, within the first week, I could take on 
a Product Verification position tomorrow. I would not 
do as good a job as the people we have now (who remain 
after some staff reductions), because they have years 
of specific experience. But I could do well enough to 
make me more attractive than somebody with lots of 
PV experience, but in a different product space.

I don't have deep knowledge that would let me debug 
our designers' code, nor do I have the depth of 
knowledge that would make me welcome in a brainstorming 
meeting with our CTO and senior designers.  I'll never 
give a presentation at the RSA conference, on the 
next mathematical wave in cryptographic theory...   :-)

I like having working knowledge. I sometimes pick up 
more, by osmosis, or because of a specific passing 
fancy -- or to be "right" in an argument -- but 
mostly, my interest begins to diminish after I've 
achieved that working-knowledge level of comprehension.
I'm an expert next to a layman. I'm somebody who 
doesn't need the acronyms explained, among the 
people in the lab.   But, if a subject is not intrinsically 
fascinating to me, then I'm not about to devote the 
time to plumb its depths, once I've reached a level 
of knowledge whereby I do good work writing for 
customers.  By then, it's time to dig into something 
else.  Generalist, versus specialist.  I'd be a polymath 
if I had the brain-power for it, but I don't, so I'm 
fine with being widely-but-not-extremely-deeply knowledgeable.

Some avoid staleness by being contractors, and changing 
"employers" every few months or years. I do it by keeping
on top of the end-results of our development efforts -- 
there's always something new being demanded by existing 
and prospective customers -- and by poking into side stuff 
like replacing Windows with Linux in the company.

If that means I'd never make it in Andrew's company, 
well I'll remember not to apply there and waste his 
time or mine. If it came to the choice between getting 
paid to install/configure/secure networks or to write 
the instructions that let other people do it efficiently 
and confidently, I prefer the latter.

YMMV

/kevin


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