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Subject:Re: What's a Girl To Do? From:Glen Warner <gdwarner -at- ricochet -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 18 May 2000 03:18:14 -0700
> Many of you agreed with Barry, I do to an extent but...
> We are a 25 person, wholly owned subsidiary of NEC. The marketing
guy is
> new, but also a big wig at NEC. I am the lone writer at the
subsidiary.
Ah! "New Guy(tm)" *and* "Big Wig(tm)". In this instance, you have to
apply one of the philosophies from the book "All I Really Needed To
Know I Learned From 'Star Trek'":
"It never hurts to suck up to the boss."
--Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #33
:o)
> I didn't write release notes. I wrote a "What's new in 4.0" doc. His
process
> was to take that, add sales and distributer info, rewrite my info
into the
> *passive style* which is corporate standard for release notes, "you
> understand" (and you would if you've seen any NEC switch manuals) --
throw
> in a few pages of a document the marketing co-op wrote, also passive.
> Mix liberally. Post to web site.
Seriously ... if there is a certain style to release notes (something
in writing you can refer to), it might be best to follow the
suggestion of asking if the marketeer wants feedback. If he does,
edit it to death -- tactfully, of course -- all the while using that
style guide as a marketeer whacker.
Another option: offer to assist him with the rewrite, using that
marketeer passive style, but better organization.
Either way, you will have accomplished the following:
(1) avoided committing career suicide (mucho importanto!)
(2) turned the marketeer into a half-decent writer
(3) garnered some Good Corporate Karma(tm) by following that
aforementioned Ferengi Rule of Acquisition ... which may pay off
some day.
>
> I had suggestions of renting a funny movie (ugh), take up kick
boxing (?) or
> getting drunk. I like the last one best ;-)
Here's an appropriate quote I snipped from someone's posting on usenet:
"The answer is tequila. I'm not certain what the question is though."
--gdw
P.S.:
No, I've never actually read that "All I Needed to Know" book
mentioned in this post.
