Re: Trends for Technical Communicators? -Reply

[Marilynne Smith <mrsmith -at- CTS -dot- COM>]

At 11:58 AM 3/9/96 -0500, Dennis Hays/The Burden Lake Group, Ltd. wrote:
>>At 02:58 PM 3/4/96 -0800, Bill Sullivan wrote:
>>>*  Commercial work versus defense contract work, translating into less
>>>discipline in terms of meeting deadlines.
>>
>-Sue Gallagher responded...
>>Whooah! Waitaminit, there Bill! Commercial work less disciplined
>>in meeting deadlines than defense work??? I don't think so.
>>
>Hold on there boys and girls. In the last year I've done both gobbamint and
>private writing gigs (not to mention scads of other federal, state and
>private thingys over the last decade or so) and there is a definate
>difference between the two. I've never had a government job run as tight as
>a private one--even throwing out the mis-run, mis-managed, mis-take of a
>project I have now. The only deadline I see in government work is
>arbitrary--and scheduling, both cost and time, is by man units (now, now.
>I'm not being sexist. That's what the US calls them, even though person
>units is preferred by all my friends).

<snip>
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I worked for a company that was contracted to the government.  The company's
incentive to meet deadlines were called "Award Fee Milestones."  If you met
the milestone, the company received a bonus.  Usually the documentation was
the   proof  that the milestone was met.

These were the tightest, most rigidly enforced deadlines I've ever
encountered.  (And you'd better believe I met them.)

Marilynne
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Marilynne Smith
mrsmith -at- cts -dot- com
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