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Re: Slow Tech Writers (offshoot of "Looking for advice -- up to the j ob?")
Subject:Re: Slow Tech Writers (offshoot of "Looking for advice -- up to the j ob?") From:letoured -at- together -dot- net To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sat, 06 Jul 2002 08:41:31 -0400
In <3936FA5B910BD411BC0600902771C7F201F2C6BC -at- prism -dot- cisco -dot- com>, on 07/05/02
at 12:44 PM, Jason Willebeek-Lemair <jlemair -at- cisco -dot- com> said:
>I work with "slow" tech writers. By slow, I mean that they work at the same
>pace, no matter what. Last-minute changes are incorporated with the same
>celerity as features known months in advance. Technical knowledge drips into
>their head at a steady pace. And there is nothing you can do to speed them
>up. Any attempts to do so only stresses them out. We call these types of
>tech writers "grinders".
>We also have "sprinters", those people who blast out new stuff at the speed
>of light. They soak up new features and technologies like a sponge, and go
>through about a keyboard a day producing new documentation for those
>features.
Call it what you want, but some of us think in different terms; like
first-tier projects that need first-tier writers, second-tier projects, etc.
Usually the first group comes from experience in writing that has to be
correct. Why there are even industries that expect it to be done right because
people can be killed, and/or thousands of dollars lost if the writer makes an
error and no one catches it before they turn the juice on during a test -- you
know, the little things that count world or writing.
And some of us are even old enough to know that if you don't do it right the
first time, it takes a lot longer to fix it. So when you find someone who is
slow -- to you -- you might just find that he has learned to be careful and
correct, by working on things that more important then you have seen yet.
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letoured -at- together -dot- net
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