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You'd be surprised (about making your boss looking good).
Back in early 1980, well-before I segued to formal technical writing, I
interviewed for a public relations/public information staff job with a
nationally known hospital and doctor organization (I had worked
previously in newspaper reporting and as a public relations staffer for
the Greater Cleveland Ohio chapter of the American Red Cross).
I recall how surprised I was when, during my initial interview, my
soon-to-be woman supervisor asked if I knew page layout and paste-up
(obviously, this was pre-desktop publishing era). When I said yes I do,
she said good because she didn't. After I was hired, I recall getting
occasional praise for my work from various staffers (both management and
nonmanagement). I just told them I had a good supervisor, thinking this
would reflect favorably on her.
Instead, I found her beginning to red-line my draft copies of news
releases like crazy; these were pretty much "formula" or boilerplate
type announcements like, "Dr. John Jones of (whatever hometown) will
begin his position as (whatever medical specialty) at (whatever hospital
in the chain) on May 1. He received his medical training at . . . etc."
I knew better, but just to be sure, I even put these drafts in front of
several other professionals in the field whom I knew for their opinions
and almost always the comments were things like no problem here, or add
a comma there. Inevitably, my drafts came back from my supervisor with
red ink all over the place. The changes were purely minor and nowhere
near required but served only to give her ammunition to abruptly can me
after 3 months. (And the summer of 1980 was an ESPECIALLY BAD TIME to be
unemployed.)
So my efforts to make HER look good only served to make her insecure
enough to regard me as a threat and dump me. (No, I didn't want her
job.)
I found out later that the entire PR department had pretty much walked
out en masse just before I hired in, and my ex-supervisor herself was
the first new hire who was apparently rushed in to get things going
again.
No, you DON'T know what your potential boss is like.
-----Original Message-----
From: On Behalf Of John Posada replying to Dori Green
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 10:20 AM
To: dgreen -at- associatedbrands -dot- com; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Portfolios and examples
> I've lost out on two jobs (that I know of) because my portfolio was
> too big.
>
> In both cases, the employer feared that I was so great that I would a.
> Demand more money than they were authorized to offer, and b. Go after
> their job.
I don't concern myself with that problem because I only want the
positions where they want the best they can get. The money we'll
negotiate and as far as me wanting their job, I prefer to think of it as
an opportunity to make my manager look good enough that she'll be a
contender for her manager's job.
>
(rest snipped)
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