Re: Tech Writing Skills, College Degrees, Marketable Skills

["Andrea Brundt" <andrea_w_brundt -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

"I am a technical communicator. I use all tools available to me to get the
right info to the right people at the right time."

Hi everybody,

Nothing personal against you Technical Communicators out there, but I always
found the term a bit fluffy. "Communicator" is such a amorphous word...could
be a writer, could be a trainer, could be the device on your desk, could be
a circuit in that device...

I always preferred writer (as in Goober Writer?). It works for the same
reason Hunter-Gatherer works. Maybe because it smells of work rather than
silos cleverly disguised as ivory towers.

This reminds me of a techwr-l thread a while back that discussed whether one
can be a manager when one manages documents but not people. Titles are funny
things. When I started at my current gig, I was the Team Lead. Then my whole
team was laid off. The execs reassured me that I was still the Team Lead,
and should function as one in the company. I laughed it off, and told them
the title was ridiculous under the circumstances and I was embarrassed to
appear on the org chart as a Team Lead with no other names around or
underneath mine.

Last week, I had a conversation with my boss. She was dangling an assortment
of carrots in front of me (money, fame, immortality, great cosmic powers,
etc) and told me that there might be a higher-level position for me in the
future. She then explained that it likely wouldn't be called a management
position, but that wouldn't matter because she knows titles aren't important
to me. I guess that's what she gathered from my discomfort about the Team
Lead thing..that titles aren't important to me.

Anyway, it's all kinda funny and sad. Speaking of amorphous, I'm going to
end this ramble now.
Regards, Andrea

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