Re: Employment Discrimination and Tech Communication

[Andrea Alvarado <andrea -at- WORF -dot- RATIONAL -dot- COM>]

In article <TECHWR-L%93100614330820 -at- VM1 -dot- UCC -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>, MSTSACX -at- gsuvm1 -dot- bitnet
 writes:

<a bunch of deleted stuff>

>  o  How many of you advocate the team approach to product development?  If you
>     do, then you have to address differences head on because differences don't
>     only exist on demographic levels, they also exist on professional levels.
>     Programmers tend to put down technical writers who, in turn, put down
 their
>     editors . . . Wait till the programmer is female, the tech writer is from
>     India, the tester is Asian, the marketing person is African
 American--you've
>     just added a dimension of tension to an already known conflict.  But if we
>     can openly discuss our feelings and differences, how can we expect to
>     get past the conflict and benefit from the synergy?

I find this particularly relevant. I have an marketing manager from India,
one male marketing engineer, one female marketing engineer, an Asian male
test engineer, and the development team is: one female, two american males,
one English male, and one French male! And our tech writer (me!) is female.
(We're all white except for the marketing manager and the test engineer.)
We're very diverse! And frankly, we revel in it! :-)

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Andrea Ames Alvarado    Rational                   andrea -at- rational -dot- com
Technical Writer        3320 Scott Blvd.                 (408)496-3897
Design Support Tools    Santa Clara, CA  95054       FAX:(408)496-3636
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     Manager, Public Relations Committee, Silicon Valley Chapter
                Society for Technical Communication
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