Re: ANON: My replacement

[Tom Herme <hermet -at- DNINEVADA -dot- COM>]

Good for you, Anonymous. You are making good faith efforts to assist this
company. They aren't listening. That's their choice.

I worked one place where the other tech. writer left. The manager brought in a
temp. who was finishing an assignment with the purchasing dept. This person was
only temping because her independent mortgage broker sideline business wasn't
paying the bills. I tried to talk to the manager about what it was he wanted in
the position with the hope that he would see things more as I did. He was more
concerned that the person looked right (read, felt right) to him. The person
had never done this kind of work before or anything even remotely related to
it. So he used her as a temp for three months then hired her. One day shortly
after he hired her, she and I were just talking, and she said that she always
disliked English classes in school. I had to crank my jaw up from the floor
where it fell when I heard this.

This is the same manager who pays lip service to the goals of best practices in
the modern technical communication world. I would attempt to push ideas such as
usability and task analyses--all to no avail. Shortly after he hired the temp,
I was gone. I figure that I tried, the company wasn't interested, there was
nothing more I could do. Just the way it goes.

Tom

Anonymous wrote:

> 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?
>
> Hopefully yours.
>
> From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000==

--
_________________________________
Tom Herme
Senior Technical Writer
DNI Nevada, Inc.
mailto://hermet -at- dninevada -dot- com
"Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=