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Subject:RE: A technique to get on development's good side From:"Susan Guttman" <Susan -dot- Guttman -at- contactft -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 12 May 2005 14:00:28 -0400
My editor and I were discussing this topic just the other day. I was editing
one developer's PowerPoint presentation on SRS standards and rewriting the
introduction to another developer's code document, both apart from my regular
day-to-day workload. I was telling her how I liked the fact that they
respected and appreciated my work enough to ask for my help to make them look
more professional, and how useful it was to me - helping with the SRS
standards PowerPoint, for example, got me an invitation to the presentation.
She, however, made a very good point - that there can be a fine line between
appreciation and abuse, in that lots of little unofficial requests for quick
edits, PDFs, help with Word, etc., etc., can really have a negative impact on
your schedule and you can't, or maybe shouldn't, accept such requests (at
least not on a regular basis). Food for thought.
Mind you, I agree with her in theory but not in practice... I *like* being
useful and I like the "in" into the developer's circle it gives me. If I
don't have time I tell them so; luckily, the developers I work with
understand they're asking a favor and don't mind the occasional "sorry, maybe
next week." And the more I help them with little questions and documents, the
easier it is to get help with *my* little questions and documents. :D
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