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My previous "manager" (note the quotes; a former pen-and-ink technical illustrator in the days prior to AutoCAD) refused to accept "that stuff" (AutoCAD), so he moved into tech writing at his prior company (before here). He totally lacked any computer or good tech writing skills and said he was told that "writing" is only a small part of "communicating". So he disregarded and ignored virtually all rules of grammar, spelling, punctuation and page layout that he didn't know, were inconvenient or "too hard" for him to learn.
Diplomatically pointing out to him that his emails to upper management were making him (and us) look bad were just words rolling off his back. But boy-oh-boy, could he BS his way into being department manager and intimidate his own staff!! Whatever the various suggestions you get here I probably heard all of them from my now ex-"boss." (He was finally cut after way-too-long, much to the relief of those inside and outside my department.)
On Friday, September 2, 2016 11:29 AM, tammyvb <tammyvb -at- spectrumwritingllc -dot- com> wrote:
 Â
Don't worry about the accuracy. Just clean it up and make it look pretty.
Or
Write to the way it is supposed to work and we will fix it later.
Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: Peter Neilson <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>
Date: 9/2/16Â 9:08 AMÂ (GMT-07:00)
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Friday question: What's your favourite manager comment?
Well, there's always, "Don't worry about the missing information. We'llÂ
see that you get it eventually."
It's that phrase "Don't worry." I think we are paid to worry, and thus weÂ
should worry. You would think I might have learned back when it happenedÂ
before, elsewhere ...
"Yes, I know that (writer X) who reports to you isn't working out, butÂ
don't worry, I'll take care of it."
In retrospect he should have said, "I want to see your plan for thisÂ
situation by tomorrow morning."
Ultimately (days or weeks later) the manager assembled a team of threeÂ
writers to do the work X had not done.
On Fri, 02 Sep 2016 10:21:43 -0400, Charlotte Branth ClaussenÂ
<charlotteclaussen -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I have more often than not reported to people with no knowledge of my
> field. This has given rise to some interesting comments. Examples are:
>
> Shouldn't we move to a more modern format, such as PDF?
> You don't need to know anything about XML!
> Your problem is that you want to understand what you're writing about!
>
> What is your favourite manager comment?
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