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RE: Paths to Seniority - from technical support to technical writ ing?
Subject:RE: Paths to Seniority - from technical support to technical writ ing? From:Kevin McLauchlan <kmclauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Fri, 6 Jul 2007 15:58:43 -0400
On Behalf Of Gene Kim-Eng sez:
> I suspect that my experience will not be applicable to a software
> company (nothing else about that industry seems to be from the
> same planet as the companies I've worked for, so why should
> this be any different?) I was hired away from a job as a test
> engineer to become a small startup's first "product support
> engineer." But the job wasn't "tech support help desk," it
> involved developing installation, operation and repair
> procedures and spare parts delivery systems and training
> field engineers. From there I went to senior technical writer
> (for all of six months) before being bumped up to technical
> publications manager.
Either you are just that good, or you've highlighted a difference between
working for a startup that gets bigger versus working for a startup that
gets bought.
When my current employer (kinda) was a startup, I was hired as the
techwriting replacement for the Veep of Engineering who, until that time,
had done all the customer docs.
We grew some, and our product lines multiplied a bit, and I was preparing to
hire some documentalist help and start growing my techpubs empire.
Then the dot.bomb bubble burst, and we got small again. After shrugging off
closing a big project and losing half the company, we started expanding
again (to meet the needs of the market). Before I even got to the kind of
workload that would justify more bodies, we were purchased.
The purchasing company was bigger, and they already had a techpubs
department with a manager. So there went my potential empire. I stayed on as
the local techwriter for what had become a branch "plant"/office. I was
pretty much master of my own domain, as they say, getting occasional
assistance and really no hindrance from the distant manager. We met once. We
traded a few e-mails. Couple of phone calls.... Boom! We got bought again.
New buying company did pretty much what the previous one had done, except
their head office (with the new-new techpubs manager) was in a different
city, and the other crew (including their/my old manager) was whittled
down).
Once again, I report to somebody in another city, with whom I've exchanged
several e-mails over the past few years, had a couple (literally) of phone
calls, and I've yet to meet the woman in person. I'm still in my own little
world, largely self-sufficient, and with little prospect of ever growing a
local empire - at most, I'll be a team lead when our burgeoning product
lines get to be a little too much for li'l ole me - probably not for another
year or two.
If the current manager departed, it's possible I could get tapped as her
replacement, but more likely it'd be the only other writer who's actually
co-located with her at head office, and I'm fine with that. The pay raise
would be hard-pressed to make up for the additional headaches.
So, all that to suggest that much of the difference in our paths might have
been due to initial timing, and to the manner in which your company grew.
Mine grew by being acquired, so there was always somebody else in place, in
charge of a bigger group, never the other way around.
And what planet are you from, again? :-)
Kevin
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