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Subject:Squashed egos... it ain't pretty! From:"Geoff Hart" <Geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca> To:TECHWR-L -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Wed, 6 Oct 1999 10:02:39 -0400
Sean Brierley <<...just finished a project . . . three books (two
small) and online help. Two books (including a 600-pager)
were original pieces, the third was a reformatting and editing
of an existing piece. The online help was new. The project
manager fired off an e-mail genuinely thanking everyone for
their effort and specifically thanking me for "beautifying" the
documentation. I'm, er, not entirely happy with that.>>
At least you were recognized publicly, which is more than
some people ever get. My personal bete noire at work, a
project manager who seriously needs a clue (if not several),
recently publicly thanked two temp employees for the work
they've done on a training CD we're developing... and
completely ignored the SME who's spent hundreds of hours
on the research, me for spending days to turn that research
into something readable, and our graphic artist for laboring
far into the night to provide the illustrations. That's after he
blamed us for dragging our heels, when he'd brought the
temps in-house a month before we were ready for them, over-
ruled us on our choice of tools, and then blamed us for the
delays. Some days...
Perhaps it's worth inquiring, without making a fuss, what the
manager meant by "beautifying". Me, I'd be seriously bent
out of shape if he'd said "prettifying", which only reflects
surface impressions. But don't forget that true beauty is more
than skin deep, and in that sense, it sounds to me like he got
the right description. Or am I giving him too much credit?
You work with the guy every day... you tell me!
--Geoff Hart @8^{)} geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca (Pointe-Claire, Quebec)
"Perhaps there is something deep and profound behind all those sevens, something just calling out for us to discover it. But I
suspect
that it is only a pernicious, Pythagorean coincidence." George Miller, "The Magical Number Seven" (1956)
