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"tom -dot- green -at- iwon -dot- com" wrote:
>
> "He shook his head, saying, "We got rid of them all. All they do is write. Anyone can do that."
>
> Man, I HOPE that is not the prevailing attitude, although it seems to be so in more than one workplace. Here, they are training Clerks and Documentation Specialists to do the Tech Writing. This IS disturbing.
>
> I do believe though, that that attitude will come back and bite them in the butt someday when it comes to quality of the documentation.
>
> Tom Green
> _______________________________________________
Coming recently from Retail, I've seen this type of thing altogether too
often. Department experts, often higher paid than the rest of the staff,
get laid off and those remaining receive crash course training in the
department tasks.
The Managers, whose job (let's face it) is to maximise ROI for the
shareholders, begin accepting lower standards for final outcomes or
deliverables. It's a trade-off between end quality and monthly staffing
overheads, pure and simple.
If the economy continues to be tight, if the shareholders and stock
weenies see surges in ROI, and/or if the functionality of documentation
is not State regulated (as we've heard about Europe where, if the user
can't understand the docs, the company can be held liable), the only
thing that will ever come back "to bite them in the butt" are ordinary
market forces.
The jeopardy of litigation is the fastest, surest way to secure TW jobs.
/Bil:)
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