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Subject:Value of technical communicators From:Tim Altom <taltom -at- SIMPLYWRITTEN -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 1 Jan 1999 18:30:16 -0500
This thread reminds me of what I've said to some techno-smarties in my time,
when they've reminded me of how they could write too, because they did
papers in college. I ask them what kind of grades they got, then I remind
them that I had a business in college writing papers for the linguistically
impaired, most of whom were science or engineering majors (an ethical
dilemma softened by the checks I received). It doesn't change their
opinions, of course, but it's wonderful fun.
It's almost as much fun when I can get into a meeting and quote something
from my library of tech comm research books and journals. Hard-nosed
unbelievers choke hard when something they think is fluffy is found to be
quantifiable.
Then if a technical whiz kid remains adversarial, I repair to my library of
engineering texts, look up some really obscure reference to something, and
innocently ask the miscreat to explain it to me while he's in front of his
colleagues. (The longer out of college, the better this works.) Not nice
maybe, but you just gotta thumb-wrestle with some people to get respect.
Tim Altom
Adobe Certified Expert, Acrobat
Simply Written, Inc.
The FrameMaker support people
Ask about Clustar Method training and consulting
317.899.5882 http://www.simplywritten.com
