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Subject:Re: A dark take on Tech Writing...do you agree? From:"Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> To:"Downing, David" <DavidDowning -at- users -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 7 Nov 2008 12:32:51 -0800
This sounds more to me like doing a current job well,
not dedication to a career. If I hire someone I expect
them to care whether they do the job right whether they
see it as a step in a longterm career path or just a temp
job they've taken in between.
I don't think it's about working to the point of collapse. Rather, it's
about the level of commitment you have.
As I think I said before, I worked as a professional catalog librarian
for awhile and got canned. I think the big beef the powers that be had
against me was that I treated it more like a job than a career -- or a
"profession." Here's one specific instance of what was wring with my
attitude. I tended to make a lot of clerical errors that required that
books came back to be to be redone. I should have been more upset about
that and actively not wanted it to happen, but it never bothered me as
much as it should have because I knew I had to work 8 hours a day in any
case, so what did it matter if I was working on new books or redoing
books that I'd messed up on the first go-round. I remember thinking that
if they told me I could only work on new books during the day and had to
stay extra hours to redo books, that would have made me be moiré
careful. But I should have been more careful because I cared whether the
work got done right. So that's why I'm not a catalog librarian anymore.
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