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Subject:Re: Can this career be saved? From:Ken Poshedly <poshedly -at- bellsouth -dot- net> To:William Sherman <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:02:51 -0700 (PDT)
Point 1 -- Your example looks remarkably like the stuff I routinely get from our
home office in China -- yet they claim it is not that bad.
Point 2 -- As part of a research project while taking a product liability class
back in the mid-1990s, I recall reading about a lawsuit in North Carolina where
a company tried to win a lawsuit against the manufacturer of a penumatic
nail-gun. Two guys were framing a house -- one on a ladder with the nail gun and
the other below and nearby the ladder.
The guy up on the ladder had the nail-gun in his belt or otherwise held to his
person but kept bumping it and shooting nails into the upper shoulder of his
nearby companion below.
The plaintiff company claimed the nail-gun was defective. The defendant company
claimed the user simply did not follow instructions to temporarily disable the
nail-gun.
On the witness stand, the guy with the nail-gun was asked "Did you read the
owner's manual?" Answer, "No."
Next question: "Was there an owner's manual for the nail-gun?" Answer, "I don't
know."
Next question: "If there was an owner's manual, would you have read it?" Answer,
"No."
Verdict was obviously for the defendant.
-- Ken in Atlanta
________________________________
From: William Sherman <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Sent: Fri, June 10, 2011 2:08:45 PM
Subject: Re: Can this career be saved?
>From a recent ad on a tech writer forum:
"We are experienced in manually distribute your Articles .We are charges for 100
submission for $15, 500 submission for $65, 1000 submission for $120 ,"
Guess the country. Now most on here can clearly see this "English" is no where
close to being the quality that any tech manual should be, yet some accountants
in many companies will see paying a decent US technical writer $30 to $45 per
hour and compare to the above prices. They will, without a doubt, dump quality
in favor of price, and so our careers are always going to be on the line.
Only after the company gets sued for some error in a manual that results in
death will they decide to improve the manuals. It happens, as people sue for
everything. I was working with a writer a month ago who was a witness in a
trial over his manuals where the user did not even have the manual around, was
crushed, and yet the estate was claiming the manual gave faulty and dangerous
information.
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