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It is oh-so-nice to work for people who have a sense of humor.
-------------- Original message from "Sarah Stegall" <sstegall -at- bivio -dot- net>: --------------
> In the late 90s I was working for a small start-up, where I had a lot of
> trouble getting reviews back from programmers and engineers. This was
> especially true of the "warnings" section. So one day, I slipped in a
> warning: Do not run with scissors. I was trying to see how many of my
> readers actually read the stuff they were signing off on (very few, as
> it turned out). When it came time for the final draft, of course I took
> that "warning" out.
>
> A message came back from the President/CEO ordering me to put it back
> in.
>
> Sarah
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+sstegall=bivio -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sstegall=bivio -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
> Behalf Of poshedly -at- bellsouth -dot- net
> Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 8:21 AM
> To: David Neeley; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Re: Fortune cookies
>
> Two stories:
> 1. A former coworker had previously worked as tech writer for a
> manufacturer of pneumatic nail guns. This was way back in the early or
> mid-1980s when they were still rather new. The instructions specifically
> stated to use nails no larger than a specific size. Inevitably, the
> company would get jammed nail guns for warranty repair -- complete with
> oversized nails in place as the cause of the jam. My former coworker
> said that one of the managers suggested adding a warning in the
> documentation, "Do not use nails larger than the size specified here or
> else jamming will occur. If you do use oversize nails, #%#&*$^ you, it's
> your problem because we told you not to!"
> And no, they didn't add THAT warning -- though I'm sure many of us on
> this list would LOVE to add a VERY direct warning to some of our own
> stuff to not do this or that or product damage or worse may result.
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
> Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
> 2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
>http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
>
> Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
> authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
> once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control!
>http://www.helpandmanual.com/
>
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
