Technical Writer or Documentation Writer?

Tue Nov 6 06:06:36 MST 2007

I'm going back to describing what I do, rather than just say what my
title is. Usually when people ask me, "What do you do?" they want to
know how I spend my work hours.

My job classification in the military was "Fire Control Technician."So
you're a fireman" would be the typical response. "Fire" as in
"ready-aim-fire" which always made for frustrating conversations when
trying to describe my job, but once people got a mental picture of me
wrapped around a water hose it was hard to change.

So I decided to tell people, "I blow stuff up!" Eventually they'd ask
me, "So what do they call that?" When I'd tell them they would say, "Do
you ever get confused with a fireman?" I'd just grin and say, "Well,
sometimes."

These days I just say:

 "I write books and documents for _______"

 "Really, what kind of things do you write?"

 <I explain>

 "Really, what do they call that?"

Blessings,

Darren

****************************************

Darren J. Butler

I write stuuff

Integrated Data for Maintenance

NG Corp

-----Original Message-----
From:
techwr-l-bounces+darren.butler.ctr=robins.af.mil at lists.techwr-l.com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+darren.butler.ctr=robins.af.mil at lists.techwr-l.
com] On Behalf Of Simon North
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 7:23 AM
To: Techwr-l
Subject: RE: Technical Writer or Documentation Writer?

I think I'd be insulted to be called 'documentation writer'; actually

writing documentation 

amounts to less than 20% of my time. For the rest, I am wiki

manager/editor/engineer/ 

evangelist, blog coach, usability consultant, editor, online help

developer, GUI developer, 

XML consultant, localization manager, english dictionary, translator,

and acknowledged 

gadget uber-geek. 

I am just 'THE tech writer'  

Simon. 

Simon North, Technical Writer.

Quintiq Application Software BV

's Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands

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