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Don't ever doubt that you have a
right
to a copy of that document. IMNSHO,
any company that flinches or balks
at giving you a personal copy,
leave! The
important thing is that you keep
only the
finished product in hardcopy and I
emphasize
final hardcopy for this reason: if
you go to
an interview and show a document
from internal
cycles it often has
"Confidential...proprietary"
on it and most interviews know that
this is a
bad sign, ie, you are hosed! also,
getting it
in PDF might violate copyright and
get you
in deep, DEEP hot water...
My way of preventing this problem
from ever
coming up--and I use this in
contract and
initial fulltime positions--is to
bring it
up at the first discussion of the
document and
making it in terms of "do we need to
plan for
distribution of copies for the
staff, the
company library, personal copies for
the
contributors?" Its not failed yet
but there have
been jobs where I walked out without
a darn
thing to show for 2-4 months work
(project
cancelations do that!)
WalterH
The Tech Writer wrote:
>
> I just got word back from my old boss. They just released the software
> that I spent 16 months documenting. I asked if I could get a .PDF copy of
> the couple of chapters on which I did the most work. She indicated that
> she couldn't. I don't have a single portfolio piece from any employer
> except a Getting Started manual I reworked for my internship! (I'm at my
> third job since the internship.) It seems that the only way to get anything
> for your portfolio is to steal it when you leave. <Sigh> Oh, well! I
> guess I'll have to keep getting by with my good looks! :-)
>
> Does anyone out there know of tactful ways of *legally* getting copies of
> work for a portfolio? Esp. ways to do it without it looking like you're
> planning to leave? ('Cause I'm really happy at my job!)
>
> -David Castro
> techwrtr -at- crl -dot- com
>
