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Subject:Re: Virtual Department - Take II From:Katy Wegner <kwegner -at- TARGETSMARTINC -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 2 Apr 1998 10:26:51 -0700
I also know of a hardware company (here in CO) that laid off all its
tech writers a few years ago. The engineers were charged with their own
documentation, etc. The company was in financial straits at the time.
They have recovered, are growing, and are in the process of rebuilding
their tech writing staff...! THe woman who told me this story implied
that the goal of having the engineers handle their own documentation
failed pretty miserably.
Good luck!
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Penny Staples [SMTP:pstaples -at- AIRWIRE -dot- COM]
> Sent: Thursday, April 02, 1998 8:38 AM
> To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject: Re: Virtual Department - Take II
>
> Sorry Kevin, I think we were all *hoping* it was a joke. And that it
> doesn't
> signal the beginning of a trend :-(
>
> Given your situation, I would talk to some key developers to try to
> define
> some requirements (my guess is that they're not happy with this
> situation
> either). What do they need, and what can they realistically be
> expected to
> use? Good luck with it.
>
> Something similar happened several years ago at a place I used to work
> --
> the company laid off anyone who had Tech Writing skills. I think that
> someone at the top decided that Tech Writers were redundant and too
> expensive. They got rid of the Business Analysts and Testers at the
> same
> time. The programmers were told to handle the whole development
> process,
> including gathering requirements, business analysis, programming,
> testing
> and documentation. For documentation, anything they couldn't handle
> was to
> be done by secretaries or other clerical staff. The company is doing
> very
> well, but from what I hear, there's mostly no documentation. Guess
> management has decided that's OK, given that the software is for an
> internal
> audience.
>
> Penny Staples
> pstaples -at- airwire -dot- com
>
> Kevin Feeman wrote:
>
>
> >Hey all. Yesterday, I wrote about creating a virtual department.
> This
> >was NO JOKE! I was really asked to do this sort of thing, because
> Intel
> >is having cost reductions and I was placed in the middle of it. The
> >timing, April Fools Day, I did not really consider it. In fact, I
> >didn't even realize it was April Fools Day. I would not make a joke
> >about technical communication on this list. Especially since there
> is
> >already so much banter and non technical related postings as it is.
> I
> >would not want to take up band width. In fact, I am a little
> offended
> >that people thought that this situation was a joke. No joke folks.
> I
> >am really faced with this situation. Now, enough raving, does anyone
> >one have suggestions on how best to handle this situation?
> >
>
> &^~~~
> Send commands to listserv -at- listserv -dot- okstate -dot- edu (e.g., SIGNOFF
> TECHWR-L)
>
