To portfolio or not portfolio?

Subject: To portfolio or not portfolio?
From: "D. Michael McIntyre" <michael -dot- mcintyre -at- rosegardenmusic -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 21:38:37 -0500

Well, all my anguished crawling about is over, and it's time to get myself a
job. I have an interview on Monday. I've got to whip up some proof of my
capacity to do various things with Word, so I can avoid being so
wishy-washy "yes but" about everything, and I've got to expand my portfolio.

I've only included works I did for hire, in a formal voice, and it's a book
and two small ~1,000-word samples. The HR person doesn't seem satisfied with
this showing, and wants me to bring my paper portfolio along. I can try to
pull some technical sounding gibberish out of thin air over the weekend, but
it would be far better to use something I wrote for real.

I'm pouring over googlespace looking for old usenet and mailing list posts of
mine that deal with technical issues. I think they illustrate my ability to
deal with technical concepts in a logical and structured way, but the tone is
not formal, because the context was not formal.

Should I avoid this like the plague because of the informal tone, or should I
use it to pump up the idea that I've been wrestling with technical issues in
words since at least 2002? (If I can find anything where I wasn't being too
vulgar in my misspent youth, when I had *no* idea everything would be
archived forever, I can probably show dealing with this into the early '90s.)

What is more important? The tone, or the content? None of the content bears
any direct relevance to what I'm interviewing to document anyway, but it
seems the more arcane computer-related topics might have some parallel when
dealing with industrial controls, mightn't they?

Will the interviewer likely consider the context in which I was writing when
judging my tone?

How about book reviews or interviews in the portfolio? Good idea or bad idea?

I don't have to fret, because I have a trucking gig all lined up, and I
actually wouldn't mind riding down the road in that shiny truck for a little
while, but it's time to put money where my mouth has been the last month or
so. I'm a writer, I say. I want to be a writer, I say. So let's prove it
and get a job, and excel at it, and live happily ever after.

Starting by getting this portfolio bulked up
--
D. Michael McIntyre
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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