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Subject:Re: Certification From:"Arlen P. Walker" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 5 Jan 1996 08:29:00 -0600
OK. I promised myself I'd lay off this thread. I'd make a good politician,
I guess, because here's another one I'm breaking.
I am in favor of certification because it may greatly simplify the
job of the hiring employer. Part of our job as prospective employees
is to make their decision as easy, as painless, and as simple as
possible.
You've almost got it right. Your job as a prospective employee is to make
the decision *to hire you* as easy as possible. If all you wanted was to
make their hiring decision easy, you wouldn't apply for a job that any
other applicant had already applied for, and thereby force them to sort
through data of any kind. By extension, your job is also to make the
decision to hire *anyone except you* as difficult as possible (within the
bounds of honesty and integrity, of course). I don't see a certification
process open to all (or even many) playing into this at all.
For me, this is an issue of accessibility for the prospective
employer, not of fairness to all tech writers.
And I think it's more important to be fair to other tech writers; I had to
learn how to be a good writer, let HR learn how to hire good people -- it's
what the job is all about, after all.
If you support a system which will unfairly exclude someone else, integrity
demands that you also support a system which will unfairly exclude you. I
don't want to settle for that; Life is unfair enough as it is without
needlessly adding to it. All I'm asking for is a fair shot, not an unfair
advantage; arbitrary decisions don't give me that.
As I said earlier -- I had to learn to make good writing decisions, let the
HR people learn to make good hiring decisions. I'll help them hire me; I'm
not masochistic enough to help them hire someone else instead of me.
Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 124
Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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In God we trust; all others must provide data.
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Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.
