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Job Description (was "A softer word for "honesty" or "integrity" ?)
Subject:Job Description (was "A softer word for "honesty" or "integrity" ?) From:"Lippincott, Richard" <RLippincott -at- as-e -dot- com> To:"techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 26 Jun 2013 15:16:48 +0000
Allan Ackerson said:
"Way back when, during initial meetings with the customer, after they went around the room with people describing themselves as electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, software engineer, etc., I'd always introduce myself as the documentation engineer. No one quite seemed to understand what that was."
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My first tech writing job was for a very large aerospace company, the tech pubs group was folded into the engineering division, I was an "Aircraft Service Manuals Engineer." (As Allan notes, no one knew what that was, not even inside the company.)
The company ID badges had our department number in big digits, so it was obvious at a glance that I worked in the engineering division. I can't tell you how many times I'd go out to the aircraft assembly line to double-check on the contents of a manual, get spotted by a production line worker who needed "an engineer" to sign off for some minor variance in the way an airplane had been put together, and assume I was authorized to do it.
Hilarity would ensue: Rick standing there looking at the airplane, production worker approaching with blueprints and pen in hand, and assembly line supervisor running at us yelling "DON'T LET HIM SIGN ANYTHING!"
--Rick Lippincott
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