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Subject:Expectations (possible rant - it IS Friday!) From:"Robyn Richards" <robynrrr -at- hotmail -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 18 Feb 2005 01:29:04 +0000
Hi all,
A couple of recent events have got me to thinking about the expectations
placed on a Technical Writer.
Event 1 - the company hires a Technical Writer in a remote office,
to continue the documentation effort on a product whose development
is now moving to that remote office. The people doing the hiring have
no understanding of the documentation process in place or the tools in
use, so could not have a) explained these to the writer hired or,
b) used "knowledge of the process/tools" as selection criteria when
selecting the writer. The existing writer was not involved in the hire -
rather was just asked to 'point the new writer to the documentation'
(no further discussion). The expectation is the new writer can "just pick
up where the previous writer left off".
Event 2 - company buys out another company and its main products.
The Tech Writer is given the task of reviewing the documentation
and making sure it is "up to scratch", without gaps or errors.
The Tech Writer must produce a new version of the help within 1 week.
All this:
- without having any understanding of the subject matter
- with 30 mins "allocated' discussion time with the developer on the
day the updated document is required
- with no prior knowledge of the tool used to produce the document
- access to a trial (only) version of the tool which is not "fully-featured"
In both these events, it seems to me the expectations on the
Technical Writer are quite high, with some strange assumptions
being made. The Tech Writer is expected to be able to produce
deliverables, (in the second case almost instantly), as if by 'magic'.
There is no understanding of the requirements of Technical Writing,
not indeed that there are different methods and different skill sets.
My questions are: have you found this to be the case? How do you
manage such expectations? How do you get across the fact that
Technical Writing is a profession and not just "the ability to write"?
Robyn (who's hoping to hear that not ALL companies have such little
understanding of Technical Writing and to glean some information on
how to 'train' her employers in this area)
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