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Subject:Summary Re-Post: Should my ego be squashed? From:Genevieve Burt <gb_techwriter -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Fri, 8 Oct 1999 12:52:12 -0700 (PDT)
Hi all--
Thanks to all of you for responding-?some of you
lectured me, some supported me, and others gave more
peer-ish advice. I appreciated it all.
Several of you seemed to think that I was baited by a
certain TW-list remark in particular. It is true that
it never occurred to me *not* to do the conversions
until that thread appeared last Wednesday. Until
then, I had cheerfully accepted the task as being a
natural part of my job, and I just wasn?t looking
forward to it. But I have to say that it was several
of the messages that got me thinking, not just one of
them, and I actually had to go back to see which one
you were referring to.
Well, I?m still not looking forward to doing these
conversions, but I see now the advantage of doing it,
and you all reminded me to be grateful that I even
have the privilege of being a tech writer. Here?s the
<brief> summary:
1. One of you offered to do it for me, ?for a very
reasonable rate,? if I e-mailed the docs to you.
2. Six of you thought farming it out to an intern or
an outside firm was a great idea because it would free
me to do things more in keeping with what I was hired
for, and more in line with the salary they pay for a
techwriter.
3. Eight of you thought I should shut up and stop
whining, be grateful to have the position, that I
should consider it a necessary part of my job, not
demeaning, to know how to use the tools to do the
conversion, and though it isn?t fun, everyone in any
job has boring tasks that they must do. One of you
even said, "There will probably be a lot of people who
appreciate the fact that you are doing that instead of
them...This is leverageable goodwill..."
Thanks again for your feedback?-it helps me learn what
it takes to reach my goal: to become a professional
technical writer.
--Genevieve
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Genevieve W. Burt
{Technical Writer}
Bachelor Controls, Inc.
www.bachelorcontrols.com
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