TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
From: "Catherine Arthur" <carthur000 -at- sympatico -dot- ca> writes:
> I have seen an unfortunate situation where a technical writer come into a
> company, and the writer did not have FrameMaker experience. It was not
> required as the team felt, as many of you do, that it can be picked up
quite
> easily. After a few months, the person was let go and another writer took
> over the document. The template was largely unused, text was formatted
> without styles, numbering was all hardcoded, as were all cross references.
> This took some time to clean up, with the document to be sent to the
printer
> the next day.
I've a few questions:
1. Why did it take "a few months" to address the situation? It should be
really obvious within a week or two that this writer doesn't know; a little
longer to find out that not only does this writer not know, but can't
(won't?) learn.
2. How was the writer managed? Was there any mentoring or reviewing going
on?
I've just come out of a situation like you're describing. Staff writer
didn't know how to use Word, Acrobat, RoboHelp/HTML, etc. That on top on
not knowing how to write. One 300 page document used NORMAL style
exclusively, with hard returns used to format page margins. So me, the
contractor, takes over the docs and mostly gets stuff done. Management was
either ignorant or uncaring about the situation.
When I was managing, if I was interviewing a writer who didn't have the tool
experience we needed, I looked for similar experience. Like, so you've
never worked with Frame--tell me how you build an index in Word (or
whatever). If the writer could understand the general concept, there was a
good chance that the tool could be learned quickly. And we always had some
other writer or editor as a mentor to help with questions as varied as "How
do I get a transit pass?" to "How do I add such and such to a Master Page?"
steve arrants, gone from California and now in Vermont.....
