Re: (long) Technical Writing - What's the catch?

["Phillip St. James" <saint0 -at- verizon -dot- net>]

Ahh, the downside of tech writing...  Too many organizations and managers 
don't have a high regard for documentation or the folks who produce it.  I 
think that it's our job to find and work with those who do see us as 
extremely valuable and highly talented, Rahul.

If not, we are often treated pretty shabbily and our best work is 
undiscovered, undervalued, and too often not written at all.  One cannot 
produce top notch documentation without ongoing, genuine, timely 
collaboration, respect and shared ambitions.

It's my feeling that since there is no well-traveled path from tech writing 
to the higher levels of most private and public organizations, we are mostly 
seen as outsiders and specialists who have no real connection to the 
mainstream and upper levels of most organizations. We are seen as a 
necessary evil in a lot of ways.

We are partly to blame for this dead-end scenario, Rahul.  Our professional 
organizations such as the STC do almost nothing to promote our skills and 
talents as valuable and relevant to other more visible jobs in management, 
sales, training and project management.

In the US particularly, there is also an imbalance in gender (mostly women), 
types of educational backgrounds (heavy on liberal arts), racial (almost all 
European) and ethnicity ("other" nationalities are usually under-represented 
when compared to marketing and engineering units).  In tech pubs management, 
women are very under-represented, and minorities are almost non-existent in 
these ranks.

So, the rest of the company too often considers tech pubs to be a backwater 
or a throwback when it comes to profit, diversity, common interests, and 
social similarities.

One wonders who will mentor and help tech writers to make their way up the 
ladder...

That said, I still dearly love and am proud of my work and occupation.  I 
only wish that it was more egalitarian, more democratic, and more openly 
respected in the business world.  We often are paid well enough, but the 
chance for sharing in the best jobs and pay is still tiny if not fictional.

Trainers often suffer from the same diminutions, Rahul.  Again, it's up to 
us and the best and brightest among us to overcome this widespread 
undeserved reputation and treatment.

What other private and public sector jobs do you think we could do well 
after strong service in technical communication?

Technical communicators are cost centers, not revenue producers.  In Silicon 
Valley, marketing and engineering have the most clout in private technology 
firms.  Personally, I have never seen a tech writer advanced on merit to 
other more visible, better jobs within large or small organizations.  Maybe 
others have seen this...

Maybe this lack of competitive, upward mobility for tech comm folks will 
gradually change for the better in the years to come.  But I wonder what 
will drive that transformation and transcendence - if it happens at all...

What do you think?  Is this differential treatment you point out fair and 
deserved?

-phillip
Palo Alto 



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