Re: Into the Frying Pan

[Chris Morton <salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Thanks to all. I'm back after a long weekend away, only to discover that
things are even worse than when I left.

Our pubs. mgr. was close to inciting an all-out mutiny yesterday as she
informed us that even more is now on our plate without even so much as a
single SOP to follow.

Unfortunately, the same recruiter that placed the pubs mgr. also placed me.
Said recruiter is also very new to the game, so I find myself in a pickle.
I was supposed to meet with her for lunch yesterday, but another "emergency
pubs meeting" precluded that. All the while, I was wondering what I'd even
talk to her about; I don't feel that I can ask her to find me a different
position, right?

In hindsight, I knew that this req. smelled the first time it was presented
to me, but when the recruiter came back around a second time with a higher
rate that matches what I can make freelancing (where my billable hours
aren't as numerous), I bit. At this point I'm thinking of calling it a day,
returning to my freelance career and building out my client base. I can
afford to do this.

What would you consider doing?



On Sun, Oct 4, 2015 at 8:54 AM, Paul Hanson <twer_lists_all -at- hotmail -dot- com>
wrote:

> After being a TWer for as long as I have, monkeying around with formatting
> is often a distraction from a lack of solid content. Since 2/10/1995, I've
> seen a lot of these situations. The "reviewer" doesn't know enough to
> review the technical accuracy of the content and decides to change the
> formatting. This type of reviewer comes in many shades. They know how to
> change font size and add page breaks. They know best about formatting
> things. <sarcasm>Didn't you know, as a professional TWer, that adding empty
> paragraphs is the best way to control formatting? Didn't you know as a
> professional TWer that writing "Click the Add button" in a procedure on
> page 7 is okay and writing "Click Add." in a procedure on page 17 is also
> okay? It's okay to not write consistently so that the reader doesn't get
> bored.</sarcasm>
>
> And it doesn't have to be people outside of your document. At one company,
> a fellow TWer bragged about how she manually typed a TOC for a 100+ user
> guide. To verify the TOC matched, she would then print it and manually
> compare between the TOC and the body of the document. If she found a
> discrepancy, she changed the TOC and reprinted the entire document. She
> bragged about being in the office until after midnight on a Monday night to
> get the user guide "done" when the deadline was at 8 AM on Tuesday. When I
> showed her how styles could be set up to make staying until after midnight
> unnecessary, she deemed styles were "too complicated" and refused to
> implement them. She didn't have any interest in the technical content of
> this user guide so she did what she knew how to do - make herself look
> necessary.
>
> The upside of your situation is that you will find another position in the
> (immediate or distant) future and be able to look back at this current
> situation with a smirk. Polish the resume, network every possible moment
> you can (including the SMEs that now want to mark up your document), and
> push through. Do your very best and triumph.
>
>
> ----
> Paul Hanson
> My blog: http://prhmusic.blogspot.com
> Me Playing Drums:
> http://prhmusic.blogspot.com/p/videos-of-me-playing-drums.html
> My (frequently ignored) Twitter: @prhmusic
>
>
>
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