Re: why are we doing this

[Bruce Boyer <bboyer -at- OBJECTSHARE -dot- COM>]

For me, it was our second child, when my wife announced she wasn't going
to work anymore for a while.  Not that either of us worked all that much,
both being graduate students and part-time instructors.  As a student of
philosophy and theology, my employment options were neither obvious,
plentiful, nor lucrative. Talking to the placement office, and having had a
past interest in computers, it was suggested that I look into technical
writing.  Within a couple of months I landed a position, based largely on
my ignorance (I was expected to take a naive user's perspective).

My philosophical training was heavily in logic.  This seems to have given
me much the same mindset as a programmer, so I've been pretty successful
both relating to their work and writing for other programmers.  I don't love
computers, however (actually, I liked them better before I had to deal with
them regularly), so I manage to maintain a sympathy for user's who similarly
are not captivated.

Writing papers on deadline has been useful.  Needing to be able to scope
work so that a reasonable degree of completion can be attained within
the time and information available has been important.

An ability to sleep with my eyes open while being apparently attentive, a
skill developed in graduate seminars, has been helpful during interminable
meetings.

Bruce


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