RE: arrogance

[Jay -dot- Malone -at- ser -dot- com]

On the project that I was writing about yesterday, there was a pervasive
attitude that TWs were glorified admins who were really good at Word. I just
looked at a job posting for this company and most of the duties described
were taking meeting minutes, checking timesheets, and orienting new project
members. My job there wasn't quite that administrative (I guess because I
was a *senior* TW :-)), but it did involve a lot more administrative work
that I wanted (or was qualified) to do. 

What bothered me was not the fact that an ESL programmer suggested grammar
changes. What that says to me is that here's very smart, educated person
who's having an issue with something I wrote.  What did bother me, though,
was the insistence on them. It was constant, and vocal.  And -- and this was
the first time I'd ever encountered it -- it was patronizing, rooted in that
whole glorified-admin thing. Many times when I was criticized of nitpicking
over those obscure points of grammar that someone else mentioned, it was
over things like really standard punctuation and whether to capitalize a
proper noun. 

Those charges of obscurity honestly just meant: "It must be obscure because
I don't know it. And furthermore (and this was the killer to me) ... It
doesn't matter because nobody reads the docs anyway." (That, BTW, *is*
arrogance.)

To which I reply: So why are ya'll paying me so much to write them? And if
nobody reads them, why are we all in such a snit over this?

Jay, independent technical writer and editor who really digs her current gig
at SER Solutions in Dulles VA
and is glad to not be at the other place anymore






***************
Daniel wrote, in part: (bullets mine) 

* Any time someone has a question =
or suggestion (engineers, marketing... anybody)  that's an indicator =
that all _may_ not be right. 

* I'm always willing to listen to what anyone has to say. If the =
suggestion has merit, it doesn't matter where it comes from. However, I =
rarely find that the _exact_ wording suggested by the engineers makes =
things clearer - though that may be a function of the developers here =
being (mostly) ESL writers. As someone else wrote earlier, it's often =
significantly worse. ;-)

*  Getting both the outside perspective and the chance to catch =
errata I've overlooked is very welcome. (And as Bruce says, focused =
reviews, where the reviewer has guidelines for what to look for are =
best.)





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