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Subject:Re: Tech writing, publicity in US From:Killer of Trees <lemay -at- NETCOM -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 8 Sep 1994 08:57:55 -0700
> ...she ... asked what I did.
> "Software documentation," I proudly replied.
> "Oh, how boring!" she blurted out.
I hang out in a lot of coffee shops and nightclubs populated with the
twenty-something tattooed bicycle messenger/espresso clerk/sullen
postmodern artiste crowd.
Everyone once in a while I get in a conversation about "where I'm
working" (its never "what do you do...")
"I'm a technical writer," say I.
Blank look of puzzlement.
"You know when you buy a VCR," I explain, "you get a little book? I
write that little book. Only I do it for computer software."
Dubious look, as if to say "gee, that sounds really dull."
But my last comment seals it up: "I get paid a whole lot of money,
and I can dress any way I want to and I don't have to be at work by nine."
Big eyes. "Oh, cooooool."
Although thats been changing a lot recently. I was at a nightclub the
other night where there was a crowd of leather-clad purple-haired
individuals by the bar drinking heavily and having an enormously
heated conversation....about Unix.
Shudder. All the world's turning into nerds. Whats a real nerd supposed
to do?
