Re: Giving TW help: Are we training our replacements?

["Chuck Martin" <cm -at- writeforyou -dot- com>]

"Ed Wurster" <eawurster -at- hotmail -dot- com> wrote in message
news:224699 -at- techwr-l -dot-  -dot-  -dot- 
>
> Chuck Martin wrote:
>
> > Bottom line: When answering pleas for help here, and in other online
> > venues, are we in some cases telling people how our jobs are done
> > fundamentally, people who are angling to take our jobs for lower pay,
> > especially people who are "offshore?"
>
> The answer is yes. But I am reading the same things you write, and I am
> onshore.
>
> I suspect that many who read your posts on this list are potential
> competitors, whether onshore or offshore.
>
Yes, and i probably should have meda that clearer. I've seen
fundamentals-type requests not only from people who I perceive to be
"offshore," but from people who appear to have jobs primarily as
programmers, marketing people, etc., who have apparently been asked (more
often than not two weeks before products release) to "write up the docs for
this thing."

I've never understood the thinking of a project manager (or other
pointy-haired ilk) who don't blink at hiring ouright a dozen programmers at
$100K each yet balk at shelling out a whopping $65K for a technical writer
who will

- Write the hundreds of pages of manual and online help pages
- Write all the lines of embedded performance assistance
- QA and focus on usability
- Edit all that is written

Just to name a few, and more often than not, do the work of more than
one--and get it done with pride and professionalism.\

-- 
--
Chuck Martin
User Assistance & Experience Engineer
twriter "at" sonic "dot" net      www.writeforyou.com

"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. The day
may come when the courage of Men fail,  when we forsake our friends and
break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day! This day, we fight!"
                    - Aragorn

"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given you."
                    - Gandalf