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Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
> My personal opinion is that Hoenenmier and
> her lawyers are willing to send the entire
> profession of technical writing down the path
> to becoming secretarial help in order to get
> their payoffs. But that's just my view on the
> subject.
An engineer's view, to be sure. Engineers have the comfort and security
of a Profession that recognizes academic preparations for a career in
engineering, and has gatekeeper functions to unambiguously certify
Professional engineers. That is one benefit of choosing a career that
works with hard data, algorithms, material, etc.
Tech writers work without so much career structure. Tying that
difference to pay rate, maturity, independence, or prestige
is something that engineers would understand, but tech writers would
not. I have viewed many of the engineers I've worked with as lowly
thumbsuckers who paddle around the shallow end of the pool, while I work
with the big ideas like language and communication. I could do without
the wasterful management of my efforts, but the engineers seem to need a
nanny to stay on task.
The only resolution to our disparate viewpoint seems to be that tech
writers ought to study engineering if they want to be peers of the
Professionals they work with. This other solution, where tech writers
have to shut up and do whatever micro-managed thing they're told if they
want to be treated as professionals, is blackmail, and a particularly
perverted form of blackmail at that.
Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com
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