Re; Senior tech writer

[Jim Cort <jcort -at- TOTALTEL -dot- COM>]

I think there's a certain amount of chutzpah involved here.  At several
places I've worked I was the only tech writer and I just started calling
myself Senior Tech Writer (although that Tech Writer of the Universe thing
has a nice ring to it.)  Nobody said I wasn't, and that's what I became.

I don't think software proficiency alone should be the criterion.  I think
proficiency with information: how to format and present it is much more
important.  I've been places where people regard the TW as the guy who knows
the word processor real well.  They haven't the remotest idea what's
involved in the job.

However, this doesn't help our friend Anon.  If Anon's version of events is
accurate, this junior tech writer has quite a few problems.

For starters, his boss has his head up his butt.
More importantly, Junior is willing to sit around and take it.  It is a
perverse rule of Nature that people like that always meet people who are
willing to dish it out.  I speak from experience here, and I am not
criticizing Junior.  I sat around myself and took it for far too long.

Junior: you have to take the bull by the tail and face the situation. If you
don't have your own best interests at heart, take my word for it, nobody
does. If your boss is no help, get a new boss.  Take a look around and dig
out anything in your current post that can do you the slightest good, and
see that good gets done. Review the recent thread on getting together
samples.  Get together a portfolio ASAP and blow the joint.  Read up on what
you don't know.  Download those demos and practice, practice, practice.

As for job interviews, well, that's what bluffing is for.

Jim Cort
Technical Writer
TotalTel
Jcort -at- total -dot- com <mailto:Jcort -at- total -dot- com>


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