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Subject:Re: Not allowed to change templates? From:John Gilger <JohnG -at- MIKOHN -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 5 May 1998 08:21:27 -0700
Well said, Andrew. Another alternative for dealing with quislings is to
save and print a copy of your document as a .txt or ASCII file for
meetings with these people. That ought to get them on track.
John Gilger
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Plato [mailto:aplato -at- EASYSTREET -dot- COM]
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 1998 8:42 AM
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject: Re: Not allowed to change templates?
> Gerd Ballenberger wrote:>
> Our (big) department has a standard set of FrameMaker templates, and
we
are
> "NOT" allowed to change them. Now we're writing a department style
guide,
> and found e.g. that there is no paragraph tag for a literature list,
and
no
> xref format for referencing the list items, like [1]. Of course we
created
> these formats (plus some others), and now we have to defend our
decision.
> How did others handle the need for special-purpose formats in a rigid
> environment?
We left and got jobs working for technical pubs groups that were not run
by
Nazis.
A few other replies to this suggested forming a review board to
determine if
the changes are necessary. Anytime I hear the words "review board" I
want
to hurl. These groups should just call themselves "lazy, ineffectual,
hateful, morons who want to control every minutia of work and sap the
life
out of everyone they touch." I have never met a review board I liked.
They
are monuments to inefficiency and petty bickering.
I remember once having to endure a TWO HOUR discussion about the value
of
sans-serif fonts. Those people should have all been melted down and
their
organs fed to strays at the pound.
Seriously, here's my useless advice: make the changes to your templates
and
don't tell anyone. If you tell them you changed the template -- they'll
yell at you and you'll spend WAY more time "defending your decision"
then
writing documents (like you should be doing). If you just do it and
don't
ask, they'll either praise you for your "ingenuity" or yell at you. The
latter has the most chance of being successful without the involvement
of
any "review boards".
As always, with love...
........................................................
Andrew Plato
Owner/Principal Consultant
Anitian Technology Services
www.anitian.com
