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Subject:RE: Tech writers are the new accountants From:Paul Hanson <phanson -at- Quintrex -dot- com> To:"techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:16:13 -0600
I don't think it's a "beat down" - it's stereotypes portrayed in the media and it goes with all types of professions.
Some examples that I hope no one takes personally:
Musicians party all night long. If you're in a rock and roll band, you're not even playing 'real' music.
And if you are a drummer, you only hang out with musicians. <old joke>
Doctors are rich and all they do is golf, see two patients a week, make love in a closet, get involved with patients who return as a ghost, and solve crimes with microscopes and DNA evidence. Once in a while, they are a star witness in a trial.
Politicians are . . . enough on that.
I can go on and on. I think it's up to me to just brush off these types of things. I know the truth. I have good personal hygiene and I lead a life outside of work. Stereotypes like this "The Technical Writer" movie don't bother me.
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+phanson=quintrex -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+phanson=quintrex -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Lin Sims
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2008 9:45 AM
To: Cardimon, Craig
Cc: Stuart Burnfield; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Tech writers are the new accountants
On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 10:42 AM, Cardimon, Craig <ccardimon -at- m-s-g -dot- com> wrote:
>
>> This week's episode of TV medical drama House features a recluse who
> has
>> unexplained seizures. He suffers from crippling agoraphobia and
> refuses
>> to leave his home to be diagnosed and treated. He believes he's OK the
>> way he is because he can get everything he needs delivered, and you
>> know, *he writes technical manuals for a living*.
>>
>> Possibly this guy could get some life coaching from the protagonist of
>> 2003 movie The Technical Writer, "... a chain smoking agorophobe who
>> lives in abject squallor," who has "terrible personal hygeine" and who
>> "would be happy to live his life in his basement apartment except for
>> the crazy people who keep forcing him to respond to their own neurotic
>> desires."
>
> Looks like we technical writers get the *beat down* once again, eh?
>
> As Rodney Dangerfield would say, "We don't get no respect."
>
It's like we're some strange, alien species.
Although a friend of mine has remarked more than once that technical
writers are weird because they like to write, whereas MOST people
would rather get poked in the eye with a sharp, pointy stick.
Might be an interesting survey question, especially if you added in
other types of writers (journalists, magazine, ad, script writers,
novelists, etc.) and then compared the results between those groups
and tech writers and those groups (including tech writers) to the
public at large...
Lin Sims
--
(Yeah, I'm not volunteering to conduct that survey, either.)
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solution. Author in Doc-To-Help's XML-based editor, Microsoft Word or
HTML and publish to the Web, Help systems or printed manuals. http://www.doctohelp.com
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