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On 09/29/1999 3:07 PM, Kevin Feeman (Kevin -dot- Feeman -at- micromass -dot- com) wrote:
>And guess what!?!?!?! It was this type of
>attitude, where I wanted to focus on writing, that got me hired above the 10
>other applicants that they interviewed.
I think that depends on the company for which you're interviewing.
Micromass (where you're posting from, so I assume that's the company
you're discussing) says on their web site:
>At MicroMass, we've created a culture where collaboration between
>"right-brainers" (writers, artists) and "left-brainers" (engineers,
>programmers) is part of the everyday job.
A company that's so willing to place its employees into well-defined
boxes will clearly respond well to your commitment to writing and nothing
else.
I, on the other hand, don't fit into those boxes very well. Companies
I've worked for have hired me because they liked the fact that I can not
only write well, but I can also communicate well with even the most
technically-minded developers in the company, read the code to find out
what's happening behind the scenes, and document an SDK as well as
end-user products.
Your company wouldn't hire me. Some of my companies wouldn't have hired
you. That's not proof that being a "jack of all trades" is good or bad;
it simply means that different kinds of technical writers find the
companies who need them, and that you can't place all people in an
industry into simple boxes.