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The notes from Elna Tymes and Pat Madea reminded me
of one of our worst goofs. Although this happened several
years ago, it is still famous here. People "recite" it from time
to time. . . .
One of our programmers gave one of our contract writers
an electronic file of text to be inserted into part of a technical
explanation. The programmer has a wry sense of humor.
He added a tongue-in-cheek ending to a paragraph that
obviously needed more. The writer left the comment in for
the book's inspection, thinking that it would generate some
discussion which might produce the rest of the information
she needed.
Time marches on. The contract writer leaves. Someone
takes the book through the printing cycle. The team leader
in the writing department sees this paragraph in the
"still-smells-of-ink" copy from the printer's drop shipment:
[Don't try to make sense of the text. I wouldn't be able to
decypher it for you either.]
"When interactive feeders are left unattended, the system
operators would have to take the same actions they take today
when this occurs, (Run in circles, sing, and shout)."
We were part of IBM at the time (. . .and no, that's not the reason
we aren't there today!). Even through our embarrassment,
we still think it's hilarious. The book's first printing went out
with the comment. Only one customer mentioned it.
Debbie Lemasters
debbie -dot- lemasters -at- marcam -dot- com
>There is also another way to get source material. I call it "writing by
>provocation." This is sometimes what you have to resort to when your
>source information is incomplete or inaccurate, and you can't get what
>you need any other way.
Pat Madea writes:
>The hidden danger is missing a small hole or leaving some verbiage in
>a large document that I used merely as a textual placeholder.
