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Subject:Re: A dark take on Tech Writing...do you agree? From:Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Tue, 4 Nov 2008 17:54:41 -0800 (PST)
I never realized I was on the "dark side." Cool. I always thought I was just a curmudgeon. Maybe I should start calling myself Darth Writer.
Actually, attempting to reduce competition never once entered my mind. I feel no need to do so. Since the dot-bomb blowup in 2001, I've managed to stay continuously employed every month of the last eight years, at pay rates that qualify me as "rich" by my own standards of 20 years ago. I am pretty well able to convince employers I some idea what I'm doing, so I really don't think I need to stoop to well-poisoning tactics.
I disagree with the idea that technical writing is an engineering field. Things related to engineering can be expressed in exact numbers, and that is definitely not true of technical writing. 'Tis neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat. It spans many other fields, including engineering. Technical writing is not really IT or engineering either one - it is a wrapper, a superset of skills that cherry picks some aspects of the fields it reports on, and adds a few skills that are not 'technical' at all. It's like newspaper reporting is neither an economic field or a business field, but the reporter needs to be able to deal with aspects of both as well as writing. The fact that it is a field that can't be neatly quantified and characterized is one of the main reasons there are so few who can do it well. That's my take on it - your mileage may vary.
As for "careers" (by the way, my father is a semi-retired doctor - a GP - one of the last of the breed)...I tend to think of that in the old terms which had connotations of long-term retention and chances of advancement within an industrial hierarchy. Yes every career is a succession of jobs if you want to raise the quibble that you don't do exactly the same thing every year. My point was, in the great majority of cases, the succession of jobs in technical writing does not carry any possibilities of upwards mobility. "Upwards mobility" meaning related increases in pay, responsibilities, authority, and position on the org chart, within the same org. The old-style idea of a career as was possible for an IBM engineer or an advertising agency manager isn't possible in technical writing. In this field, the "career" consists entirely of doing the same kind of work at 9 different companies over the span of 14 years. Unless you find the right company to work
for, there may be increases in pay and chances to work into some sort of management function, but those will be disjointed in time and work location.
I'd much rather do tech writing than fiction. I've done both. Fiction is much harder and more painful.
> From: Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
> Subject: Re: A dark take on Tech Writing...do you agree?
> To: "CL T" <straylightsghost -at- gmail -dot- com>, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Date: Tuesday, November 4, 2008, 1:02 PM
> To a certain extent, yes. The practical, nuts-and-bolts
> aspects of the process - setting document goals,
> balancing time and resources, meeting deadlines,
> handling interactions with busy and possibly less
> than enthusiastic coworkers - all are spot-on.
> Welcome to the real world after graduation. I had
> every single one of these to contend with during
> the 15+ years of my previous career as an engineer.
> The process is called "product development," and
> it's
> what produces technical things that need to be written
> about. You want to write and not have to deal with
> them? Try writing one of these instead:
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/bestseller/
>
> Just be sure to stay away from romance novels or
> writing for television, as I'm told both are a lot like
> technical writing. :)
>
> As for the more "career oriented" aspects of
> this, in
> the industries I've worked in, technical writing was
> *never* a "skilled IT field." It has always
> been, and
> remains to this day. an *engineering* field. Yes, I
> occasionally write an internal document that instructs
> people how to use some IT-related process or system,
> but my primary work involves developing product and
> getting it out the door and into the hands of paying
> customers.
>
> "Technical writers" are indeed "a dime a
> dozen."
> *Good* technical writers, who understand the role
> of effective, on-time product documentation in
> supporting profitable product development and
> support processes, are as scarce as hen's teeth.
> Yes, I often hire "technical writers" on a
> project
> basis and wave goodbye when they've finished
> a project (assuming they make it that far), but
> when I find a *good* technical writer, I funnel as
> much work as possible to him/her until I can justify
> a fulltime hire.
>
> Yes, nobody is promoted to upper management
> for being a good tech writer. Nobody is promoted
> to upper management for being a good engineer,
> either. You get promoted to upper management
> for being good at lower and middle management,
> and you get good at those by learning to manage
> anything and everything.
>
> Everybody's career is "a succession of jobs."
> The writer of this sounds to me like someone
> whose dad spent 40 years working on one
> company's assembly line somewhere, and
> thinks it ought to be possible to have a similar
> career but with more advancement by writing.
>
> If you want to make a life in technical writing
> and advance in it, you must embrace the
> process - *all* of the process, from beginning
> to end, including the constant reaching out for
> new things to add to it. If you think the process
> is "writing," and see everything else that has to
> be
> done as just a distraction or burden added to writing,
> then this "dark take" on technical writing is
> correct.
> Get out of the field. Get out as fast as possible.
> Preferably before your resume reaches my desk.
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "CL T" <straylightsghost -at- gmail -dot- com>
> > http://cli.gs/76aTnG
> >
> > The opinion of one Tech Writer and their advice to
> aspiring TW's. Do
> > you
> > agree with this dark take on our career?
>
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