Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ... GEEZ!

Subject: Honestly -- when an SME completely REWRITES your text ... GEEZ!
From: "Downing, David" <DavidDowning -at- users -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:59:56 -0500

The other day, I held a document review meeting, and one of the SMEs
told me I needed to rewrite the description of a particular function to
clarify it. Okay, fair enough. I rewrite the passages (and made various
other revisions from the meeting) and sent out the revised text to
everyone. I got an email back from this particular SME this morning in
which he completely rewrite the function description for me. I'm not
sure whether to be

- Grateful to him for trying to be helpful.

- Angry with him for not keeping his place and trying to usurp my role.
Hey, I'M the writer.

- Insulted, because he's decided I can't write. Rather than telling me
the passage heeds further clarification, he's thrown up his hands and
just said, "Looks like I need to write this for him."

One thing's for sure -- what he wrote does NOT conform to our
departmental style.

How would you take it -- and has anything like this happened to any of
you?

(And I'm going to check the "To" filed in this email very carefully
before sending it. I've made the mistake several times recently of
sending messages to the list that were meant for someone else. It would
be just my luck, that I would send this message meant for the list to
the SME by mistake.)
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