Re: What constitutes a senior tech writer and how to get there?

["Higgins, Lisa" <LHiggins -at- CARRIERACCESS -dot- COM>]

> I agree that Anonymous (and all tech writers, for that
> matter) ought to take
> charge of his or her own tech writing destiny, particularly
> considering the
> obvious lack of support he or she is currently getting.
> However, I would not
> blame Anonymous either for getting poor reviews.

True. That's one reason I mentioned, too, that I don't think people with 3
years' experience are generally ready to be senior writers. And I don't
really think any of us are in a position to blame anyone in that situation.
We just don't have enough information for that.

There's another point here, though, that I think needs to be made: Who came
up with the requirement that everyone move on to a senior level? I once
worked with a woman who was a junior writer, and was not stellar, but
certainly dependable and even. This was very early in my career, and she was
working with me and another person who was fairly inexperienced, too. This
other person and I both worked really hard to get ahead--taking on more
responsibility, learning on our own time, etc. The junior writer wasn't
interested in that, though. Her career wasn't a big important thing to her.
She had a fairly frugal lifestyle and some outside interests, and she
genuinely enjoyed coming to work, taking directions from others, and going
home to pursue her other interests. She didn't really care that much about
getting more money, and her personal identity was not all tied up in her
job. I thought that was great. It can be really hard sometimes to find
someone who is happy doing repetitive tasks for you, and she was really
happy with that. So, everyone was happy, right? Yep, until she got fired for
not moving ahead. A few of us fought hard for her and went to management to
tell them that we needed her. No go. They canned her for being happy where
she was. I just filed this under "Work Sucks" in my worldview file, but this
anonymous story got me to thinking about it again. I wonder if it's the same
managers who fired my junior writer.

In my opinion it is
> management's responsibility to judge Anon's performance based
> on the work
> assigned to them. Management has no business complaining that
> Anon's skills are
> not "senior level" when management has asked Anon to spend an
> entire year
> proofreading.

True. Management has no business complaining that anyone with only three
years'
experience isn't senior level. I guess that I just expect some management to
be a little clueless and intractable the way I expect something like
gravity. Yeah, it's kind of gravity's fault that I fall down a lot, but it's
also because I'm a big dork and I fall down a lot. I don't have control over
gravity, but I do have control over my being a big dork (in theory, anyway).

Yes, management is asking for ridiculous things. Expect that. But, unless
you've actively pursued additional training and experience and been shot
down by management, you can hardly blame *them* for blowing it off. And if
you have pursued it, you really need to look elsewhere. Ask management what
they mean by Sr. Technical Writer. It's a really squishy term, and none of
us can tell you what they mean when they say it. Once they've told you,
determine whether you want to do that, and if so, how you are going to go
about getting there. If they toss up roadblocks, you probably need to start
looking for something else.

Lisa.


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