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"Have any of you ever known of companies that hire technical writers for
part-time positions? It seems to me the choices are full-time work or
contract. I'm too scared to take the leap into contract work right now
because I must have the income to pay the bills. I think I would spend
too much time worrying about finding the next job."
My company usually does not hire part-timers for this type of position,
but at the moment I do have a part-time writer helping me out. She is
classified as a "temporary" employee, meaning that this is a temporary
situation, and she will either be terminated when she's helped us catch
up with our backlog, or else will eventually be switched to a permanent
full-time employee. I doubt the latter will happen because she's got two
kids at home and only wants to work a few hours a day.
Judging from what I've heard and seen among my acquaintances, you have a
better chance of arranging a part-time position at a large company like
Motorola or AT&T because they seem to be more flexible and open-minded
about working arrangements. One of my friends was an engineer at such a
company, and when she had her first child they let her drop to 20 hours
a week, let her do most of her work at home (she only had to come in one
day a month), and continued giving her full benefits. Wow! Not all
places may be quite that accommodating, but I guess you never know what
the possibilities are until you ask around.
Good luck and let us know how things work out. I can relate to your
position -- I'm expecting my second child in a few weeks and had
originally hoped to drop to part time after returning from my leave.
(Like you, I don't want to leap into contract/freelance work at this
point, and as Geoff pointed out, working at home isn't the answer right
now because I'd get a constant stream of "mommy, mommy, mommy,
mommy...." from my 3-year old.) Unfortunately we've got a huge backlog
of doc projects and I am the senior person here (also known as "She Who
Knows All") -- the other writers have been here 4 months and 2 months
respectively. So I know that any such request would be turned down. :-(
