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Subject:RE: Chattiness in manuals From:mlist -at- safenet-inc -dot- com To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Thu, 19 Oct 2006 13:00:57 -0400
I've worked with engineers and programmers and other techy people for ... oh
darn... decades now. I can't recall more than two or three out of many
hundreds who might have a problem with a little judiciously injected levity
or humanity.
So, where ARE all these people who would instantly
take/construct/create-out-of-nothing offense at a cute estimate of the time
an operation might take before requiring another input?
I'm normally careful ... to some extent, but I've mentioned this one before:
Years ago, when I worked with Ericsson's cellular systems division, as part
of the Technical Assistance Center (supporting cellular systems
operators/techs/engineers worldwide), I created and ran the support BBS, and
later the support Web site. One day, I created a "Don't Touch This" button.
It led to a succession of pages (each with the button in the same place)
with a new, escalating exhortation.
I said, don't touch this.
No, really, don't touch this.
DON'T touch the BUTTON!
You touched the button again.
STOP touching the button!
Stoppit!
STOPPIT right NOW!
Look, just QUIT, ok?
Hey, this is serious business! Don't touch the button.
STOP
TOUCHING
THE
BUTTON!
Does your mother know you're doing this?
.... and on it went, up to 75 pages.
If they got that far, they were locked out and had to call me to get
re-instated.
Nobody ever objected, and the audience was worldwide.
A really scary number of people went all the way and had to have their
accounts re-set.
A few did it several times... make of that what you will.
On more than one occasion I heard howls of laughter in the background when
the call came in.
I recreated it for the web site. It remained popular in an environment where
downtime was measured in tens of thousands of dollars per minute (might
explain some things about cell rates in the 90s...).
So, last year, I put an equivalent in my Help. It's only about 25 pages, but
it works about the same way.
At the end, I can't cut off access, so the second last page says "If you
don't stop you'll go blind", and then the last page is all blackness.
Only a few people have discovered it, and so far, only grins have ensued.
But if I disappear from the list one day, you'll have an idea why.
Kevin (if you are a hiring manager, um, it's some other Kevin)
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