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This automotive repair information company I work for has produced a
mind-numbingly vast amount of data since it was created sometime in the
early 50s. So, of course, a certain amount of "rebel creativity" is
bound to slip through the filters. At one time there existed a file (an
actual physical folder) containing the various "easter eggs" (both
intentional and not) that have made it into published volumes.
Unfortunately, the file most likely left with some old-timer who's no
longer around. I haven't seen it in many years.
But some of things I remember are:
- An illustration used to help explain how to fix a glove-compartment
squeak contained the image of a mouse, in the compartment, with a
callout labeled "squeak".
- An illustration dealing with a radiator core had small, mostly eaten
apple sitting on the radiator, labeled "core".
Also, a couple of in-house comments that didn't quite get commented-out:
- "Please see Chuck if you have a problem with this - x.6540."
And yes, some of our customers who've called asking for Chuck (or
extension 6540) were serious.
- "How stupid do you have to be to need this information?!"
That was back in the days when we actually left out material deemed too
rudimentary for professional mechanics.
Smart CEO. Sometimes little gems like that do a lot to give a company or
a product a human face.
On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Sarah Stegall<sstegall -at- bivio -dot- net>
wrote:
> In the late 90s I was working for a small start-up, where I had a lot
> of trouble getting reviews back from programmers and engineers. This
> was especially true of the "warnings" section. So one day, I slipped
> in a
> warning: Do not run with scissors. I was trying to see how many of my
> readers actually read the stuff they were signing off on (very few, as
> it turned out). When it came time for the final draft, of course I
took
> that "warning" out.
>
> A message came back from the President/CEO ordering me to put it back
> in.
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual authors
and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write once, publish
to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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Brian -dot- Henderson -at- mitchell1 -dot- com -dot-
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
