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Subject:Re: Work/ed for IBM? From:Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Fri, 08 Jun 2007 12:04:26 +0800
IBM is such a huge organisation, it's hard to generalise. The subject
matter ranges from hardware to chip design, advanced research to legacy
products from the 1970s, mainframe, minicomputer and workstation OSes,
applications, languages, and more.
I expected a very hierarchical, bureaucratic place, but found the
reverse. The office where I worked (Perth office of the Australia
Development Lab) was very relaxed, and focused much more on doing good
work than how you looked while doing it.
IBM has bought a lot of companies over the past few years, so if your
friend lands in a project that's currently 'bluewashing' its products
and manuals, he or she will probably find it a mixture of the old
company's culture and the IBM culture.
IBM has a great range of resources available through its intranet,
though it took me quite to find all the good information sources. You
end up knowing much more than you ever wanted to about Lotus Notes.
A lot of the publishing tools are developed in-house so your friend will
have to learn about those, and it won't be readily transferable back to
the outside world.
I worked on a component of the mainframe operating system z/OS. My
colleagues tended to assume I knew the IBM jargon--APARs, PTFs, PSP
bucket--so I had to pick that up in a hurry.
At my location the developers did nearly all the writing. I actually did
very little writing during my various contracts there. That was one
reason why I didn't renew the last time.
Most of the 'lifers' or long-term information developers that I dealt
with in the US were very smart and competent people.
I got to work on a range of projects, but that might just be peculiar to
that location. I got the impression that many TWs elsewhere worked in a
"small cog, big machine" environment.
To sum up, IBM is like moving to another country that has the same
language but a different dialect and customs.
Stuart
> Has anyone here worke dfor IBM as a Tech Writer?
> A friend is going to an interview there in the coming
> weeks and is curious what the culture is like there, etc.
>
> I'm assuming it's a good place to be considering all the
> style guides and books they have produced on the topic.
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