Re: MS Word 2003 - Working without a template

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

It's not clear to me from Sylvia's original post that she is the 
"boss" in this situation.  Given her uncertainty as to who is 
supposed to set writer priorities, I tend to hope for her sake 
that she is not.  But if she is, then it most certainly is her 
place to complain if she asked the contractor for a "simple 
template" and the contractor is consuming time on template 
"nice to haves" that don't advance the document team effort, 
even if they do produce "extra productivity for himself."

And any way you look at it, a year is a helluva long time to
be "developing" a template if a first release of it has yet 
to be incorporated into the document process.  If the person
doing all the template work is primarily doing that and just
a bit of editing, formatting and "interviewing" while Sylvia
has been doing the bulk of the actual research and writing,
it may be necessary to consider whether all this extended
template development effort is being used to mask the other
writer's unwillingness or inability to do the rest of the work,
and whether Sylvia and her company might be better off 
with a new contractor.

Gene Kim-Eng

Management is fun.  Really, it is.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jonathan West" <jwest -at- mvps -dot- org>

> Doesn't matter. If he is producing extra productivity for himself as a
> result of the template, you are not in a position to complain. If you
> do complain, then he will soon be brushing up his resume and you will
> be falling even further behind because you have lost half your writing
> team.

> Either he will find time to
> continue private development which only he benefits from, or he will
> leave and find another job with a more enlightened boss.

> As his boss, you are
> entitled to set priorities as to what additional features should be
> added to the template, when they should be added and in what order.

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