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I was talking with a couple of engineers this morning, and was pleasantly
surprised to hear them discussing technical publications. :-)
One of them said that at a former employer, the people who reviewed the
documentation had gotten into the habit of "pencil whipping," whereby they
signed off on the documents without actually reading them.
Of course, phone calls to support increased as reviews decreased. Finally,
the writers came up with a plan to convince the reviewers to do their jobs.
After some time passed and the reviewers began complaining about a new rash
of phone calls they were getting. ;-)
The writers asked them if they had reviewed the documentation prior to its
publication. "Of course," was their indignant response.
"Well, apparently you didn't, because if you had, you would have noticed
that we put your name and day and evening (home) phone numbers in each of
the manuals you were responsible for reviewing! Had you been doing your
job, you would have seen it, and had the authority to remove it from the
text!"
(The reviewers tried complaining to the writers' manager--they were not
successful, though, because he had been in on the plan from the beginning!)
Happy Friday!
Lisa B.
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
Lisa Bronson
Associate Technical Writer
Evergreen Packaging Equipment
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
319-399-3239
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
"Writing about yourself is a tremendously powerful exercise. If you want to
know how accurately you perceive reality in the present, try writing about
your perception of your past. You just might discover an entirely new
reality."--Lisa Bronson
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