Re: Career moves? What jobs are technical writers likely to move toward
With such a starved vision of what the job of technical writing is, it is no
wonder you weren't happy.
Well, if you use "starved" as a verb rather than an adjective, you're right. In my case, at least.
I was in the field for five years, and have been out of it for five more, as an interaction designer. And while my vision for what techcomm *should* be certainly kept pace with those of anyone here, that vision was not congruent with those of the managers for whom I worked. Many of them implicitly (and in one case explicitly) believed that the tech writer's place was to "sit in your cube and document the documentation in the documents" (direct quote) and essentially speak when spoken to.
Visions are good; getting paid on the "Engineer" rather than "Documentation" pay track is better; getting genuine respect from management and engineering is best of all. I can't say I recall getting much of that until I finally excised "Tech writing" from the first two pages of my resume.
However, I think it is a good thing when people who
think the job is "pecking out manuals" get out. We need less people who think
like that, and more people who care about how technology affects the people who
use it.
While that's a fair enough sentiment, I think it ignores the real disillusion many of us feel at noticing the strict limits - money, respect, advancement - that seem to attend technical communication.
I enjoyed my time in the field, and I learned a lot. And I'd have a VERY hard time going back.
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Re: Career moves? What jobs are technical writers likely to move toward: From: Andrew Plato
Re: Career moves? What jobs are technical writers likely to move toward: From: Bonnie Granat
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