Re: Satisfaction (was ... Re: The value of technical writers)

[Matt Ion <soundy -at- SOUNDY -dot- ML -dot- ORG>]

On Tue, 29 Dec 1998 16:33:10 -0700, Eric J. Ray wrote:

>No, not all of the projects I've been on have been like
>this, but this isn't terribly uncommon, and it's certainly
>quite possible to walk into a tech writing position and
>have/earn/not screw up a solid working relationship
>with most people.

Y'know, one thought just occured to me... I recently fixed up a friend's
PC, an old 486 machine, with an EXTREMELY well-written manual, clearly
documenting not only every slot, socket and jumper, but also with a brief
description of all the options in the BIOS.  Anyone who's dealt with
motherboard manuals before will realize how rare a treasure this one is.
Most I've come across are about six pages long and very poorly translated
from one Far-Eastern language or another.

The next time I hear a "glorified secretary" comment, methinks I'll just
pull out this manual along with one of the many worst-of-breed ones in my
files, and illustrate the difference a good technical writer can make.

I'm sure most of us could easily find similarly contrasting examples of
good vs. truly rotten documentation for our specific fields...



 Your friend and mine,
 Matt
 <All standard disclaimers apply>
 "Reality is in alpha test on protoype hardware."
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 It is impossible to rightly govern the world
 without God and the Bible.
                                - George Washington


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