Re: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?"

Subject: Re: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?"
From: Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
To: Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>, "Janoff, Steven" <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- hologic -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 14:20:49 -0700

Comedy of errors. At the time, software developers liked to see themselves as high tech nonconformists (maybe they still do, don't know because I'm out of that loop now). They'd spend 16 hours cranking out code one day, then not show up at the office for two or three, and as long as the projects got done everyone - including their management, who also saw themselves as high tech nonconformists - was happy.

But the CLC mandated that OT pay be based on an eight-hour day rather than a 40-hour week. So the industry wanted an exclusion from that to enable everyone to work the hours they wanted. For the most part, writers who chose to work with these cowboy developers were ok with this, which may explain why the NWU never seemed to make much of an outreach effort to let them know they were pushing for the writer exclusion.

Most everyone was ok with just pretending the writer exclusion didn't exist, until Sun in its infinite stupidity started making exempt employees put in mandatory unpaid OT that their professional judgement told them was unnecessary to accomplish their work. The result was Hoenemier v. Sun Microsystems, and now software technical writers spend a lot of time grumbling about not being able to call themselves "professional employees" while not making any additional money because they usually aren't working much OT anyway.

Gene Kim-Eng


On 6/23/2015 1:51 PM, Robert Lauriston wrote:

The computer software industry lobbied the legislature for a special
exemption so they could make programmers work long hours without
having to pay overtime

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Follow-Ups:

References:
"Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Cardimon, Craig
RE: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Janoff, Steven
Re: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Robert Lauriston
RE: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Janoff, Steven
Re: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Gene Kim-Eng
Re: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Robert Lauriston
Re: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Gene Kim-Eng
Re: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Robert Lauriston
RE: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Mike Christie
Re: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Robert Lauriston
RE: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Janoff, Steven
Re: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Robert Lauriston
RE: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Janoff, Steven
Re: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Robert Lauriston
RE: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Janoff, Steven
Re: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?": From: Robert Lauriston

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