Re: Squashed egos... it ain't pretty!

["Eric J. Ray" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>]

 > I recently got into a grudge match over the time line I'd established for a
 > particular document's delivery.  My boss said, and I quote:
 >
 >                 "Given the choice between a quality document that
 >                 will take 4 months, and a mediocre one that will take
 >                 4 weeks, I'll choose the mediocre one *every time*!"
 >
 > I swear, I just about blew an artery when he said that.
 >
 > There is so little understanding of what our job entails...it's
frustrating,
 > plain and simple.  I hate the fact that I am forced to constantly produce
less
 > than my best work.
 
 And I'll bet you (or anyone) a virtual lunch that your boss grouses
 to his peers and anyone else who will listen about the fact that
 (as he likely sees it) technical writers display
 "....so little understanding of business realities...it's frustrating,
 plain and simple. I hate the fact that tech writers can't or won't
 find an appropriate middle ground for document quality or recognize
 when they've stumbled into the wrong side of the 80/20 equation."
 
 I've never published ANYTHING that I'd call my
 "best work". There's a lot that I'm really proud of, but
 all tech writing requires a compromise between polished
 perfection and acceptable adequacy. One of the real arts of
 technical communication is finding the correct level of
 polish vs. adequacy for any given document, and not getting
 stuck into a mode of overzealous perfectionism or settling
 for inadequate slapped-together getting-by work.
 Or, as Deb puts it, "you do your best work, given the amount of
 time available." Business realities dictate the time
 available, though, and you have to understand those.
 
 Eric