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Subject:Re: ANON: My replacement From:John Gilger <jgilger_it -at- NV -dot- DOE -dot- GOV> Date:Wed, 27 Jan 1999 07:37:21 -0800
Anonymous,
It sounds like you work for a company just like I worded for a while
back. I can only offer two possible answers to your problem.
1. Have you told your boss that you would stay if they would raise
your pay to a level exceeding your current offer? You wouldn't need to
worry about a replacement.
2. It is not really your problem. It seems that managers of some
small software firms are great ex-programmers with little in the way of
management skills. They often seem to prefer to learn by falling on
their swords rather than listening to the experience of others.
Possibly, one reason your company had a bad experience with head hunters
is that they didn't accurately assess their needs and communicate them
to the recruiter. Another reason could have been that they were
offering sub-standard pay. It is extremely difficult for a recruiter to
persuade anyone to look at a job that pays substantially less than
similar jobs on the list. Maybe you ought to point this out to your
boss. Now we're back to question 1.
HTH
John
-----Original Message-----
From: Anonymous [SMTP:anonfwd -at- RAYCOMM -dot- COM]
Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 1999 5:07 AM
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject: ANON: My replacement
Message forwarded on request. Please
reply on list.
****************************
I need some quick advice, and a search of the archives didn't
turn up
exactly what I needed, so here goes.
For a few years, I have been working as a tech writer in a
medium-sized
software company. We have two tech writers. Just recently one
of our tech
writers took another position, and I was told that we were going
to try one
of our administrative assistants as a replacement, someone "who
was
interested in writing," although of course the person in
question has no
actual writing experience or an actual college degree. I would
be in
charge of training this person, etc., etc. The reason I don't
sound more
irked about this situation is because *I* am leaving the company
too, for a
more lucrative job at another, more structured software firm.
This announcement caused some excitement, but the main thing I
am worried
about is my replacement. My boss has almost no doc experience
and,
although a nice person, doesn't really understand writers or
writing. He
asked where I would suggest finding a replacement and I
suggested using a
headhunter to bring in a "real" tech writer, especially since
there is
someone with no experience to train and none of the managers
have doc
experience. He turned this down flat, saying that the last tech
writer
they'd gotten through headhunters didn't work out at all. While
this is
pretty absurd on the face of it, my manager has a lot of clout
here, and I
think it may turn out into one of these situations where they
try to hobble
by with a freelance guy (works parttime remotely, does an okay
job, not
very conscientious) and the admin assistant. It's not easy
finding tech
people of any kind lately, and our company tends to be a bit
frugal on the
salary front for non-programmers.
I think the head of our department will be talking to me about
why I'm
leaving. I'd like to make some suggestions about how and why to
get
someone *good* to replace me--but I'm under the gun getting
things done, so
I don't have much time or energy to think about it. I know this
may sound
dumb and elementary, but can you guys come up with any good ways
to find
tech writers, or reasons why going through a headhunter is
actually not
such a bad idea? In other words, what would *you* say?
