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I have hesitated all morning about responding to this thread, because my comment is likely to make me seem ineffective and my company less than progressive. Aw, heck. Now that I've read that I'm not alone, here goes. Keep in mind that these are otherwise high-functioning, intelligent, good people.
But we do sort of vacillate between "BTW, you're also the project manager for this effort, go for it!" and
"Project management? We don't need no freakin' project management. That stuff is for sissies who can't accept the reality that real life is a constant dance of chaos and that's the way it's supposed to be or God would not have made things that way. Take all of that New Age crap and go hug a tree, we've got Production to think about."
And then once in a while we kinda sorta swing, lunge, crawl back in the other direction again. In thirty years of experience and on more than a couple of e-lists and SIGs, this situation has not been unique so I swing along in the rhythm of the moment and do what I can from behind the Wizard/Geek curtain like the Great and Powerful Oz. I figure that in a situation like this, anything I can do to make life on the line a little bit easier/more understandable/more rewarding/safer is better than nothing.
Somebody asked me a while ago why I became a technical writer and the answer that jumped right off the tip of my tongue before I could stop it was "Cursed at birth, I guess."
Dori Green
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