Happy to be a Tech Writer?

[Simon North]

At school I couldn't choose between arts and sciences. I ended up with
high school 
qualifications at both. I went to university to study mathematics,
statistics and 
computing but after a year transferred to English & French Literature.


Real life quickly taught me two lessons: 1. it wasn't holding it's
breath waiting for yet 
another literature graduate, 2. it's very hard to earn a living in the
UK as a professional 
skydiver. 

I joined the Army (I actually applied for a job a bus driver at the
same time and decided 
I'd go for whichever one responded first) who, not knowing what on
earth to do with me, 
trained me to be an avionics technician. Six years later with still no
clue about what to do 
with my life, I stumbled on a government retraining scheme for
unemployed people and 
it turned out that I had a natural talent for technical writing. 

23 years later, I'm still here ... and it still says 'technical writer'
on my business card. Of course, 
things have changed a lot in those years but I still write
documentation, even if I do things with 
it afterwards that I would never have dreamed possible all those years
ago. 

Happy? Yes. Any job has it's ups and downs (skydiving had more than
most!), and I had a done 
a lot of jobs before ending up here (butcher, station master, night
security guard, bullion guard, 
clerk, fireman), but I simply cannot imagine wanting to do anything
else. 

Simon.   

Simon North, Technical Writer.
Quintiq Application Software BV
's Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands
 
---
"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for
happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost."
--Gustave Flaubert


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