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Subject:NY--Jamestown:Opportunity From:Gail DeCamp <decampg -at- SMTPLINK -dot- NGC -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 24 Mar 1995 11:43:23 PST
Bush Industries, a furniture maker in Jamestown, is ripe for conquest by an
enterprising technical writer.
Here's how I know: I bought a Bush Industries bookcase from the local Office
Max. I got it home and dug through the box for the directions--and on the front
of the leaflet it has a customer service hotline, staffed 7 days a week (12
hours per day).
So I started in on the bookcase, and darned if I didn't need to call the support
number. The manual's graphics were good, but the written instructions were
terrible---and they'd gone to the trouble of translating, but then stuck the
spanish translation haphazardly in the middle of the book.
So I called. My last question ("Who writes these instructions?") got this
resigned and exasperated reply: "The *engineers*." (It was pretty obvious that
she'd answered THAT question a lot, and it was mostly asked by very frustrated
people.)
Not only that, she'd never even heard of technical writers.
Not only that, but there are 1500 of these instruction booklets, all written by
engineers.
An enterprising writer could go and educate the management about the advantages
of hiring a writer. Go get 'em, team!
