get to the last step.
But if there is no need to explain any step beyond "push
button 1, if result A push button2, if result B push button 3"
it could work.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Sean Hower" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> So, I've been playng
"At the time this document went to press our marketing department
still hasn't decided whether or not to give you a cable. Good luck."
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Milan Davidovic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> And suggest how the TWer i
tally accurate manual that cites the cable
as "not included" that I don't see until after I've come home without
one will not make me any less annoyed a customer than one that
says maybe/maybe not.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Barry Campbell"
. profitability go.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Lisa M. Bronson (TCP)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 7:17 AM
Subject: [TCP] Management
> So, where are you at in your technical communication career? Are you
> in
>
t matters is that of your
perspective manager.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Milan Davidovic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Question to managers: would a writer's answer to this question
> influence whether you hired them?
>
> I ask this because it see
hat in that particular
time, place and industry, I was pretty much the only one
there was who did. Since then I have learned to always
look for people who can either do something I can't do or
who can do something I can do better than I can do it.
Gene Kim-Eng
move on to
the next place that values what you want to do. There are worse
things that can happen than not getting a promotion in your current
company.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Dana Worley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> IMO, this is a very narrow view
the success and failure of projects
and people, the goal is always improvement, not
blame or punishment. The only "dumb mistake" is
one that is being repeated. Especially by you.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "James Barrow" <[EMAIL PROTE
I wouldn't tell them *that* part unless I was trying to scare off
future competition... :)
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "John Garison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Now, so far I haven't addressed the direct question of
t consider good management
practice. I've escaped one or two of these places by the skin of
my teeth.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Barry Campbell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> What makes you successful as a manager? Figuring out what your
> company wa
, shame on me.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Dori Green" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Oh, and in case anybody is wondering -- when I brought up the question
> about
> permanent status their answer was that they could not hire anybody
> without a
> cl
7;t assume that someone who is technically adept will exercise
the common sense to use and verify data.
Don't depend on documentation when your eyes should tell you
there's something wrong.
Verify your data with experienced (or in this case, local) sources
of information.
Have a b
e for initial delivery and don't devote any time to
turning it into a context-based index because we aren't
able to predict what the final context for any given entry
will be once it's been incorporated into our customers'
systems and documents.
Gene Kim-Eng
On 12/12/06, Lis
Not with default Acrobat. You could set document preferences
to hide all the menus, but if someone knows to use CTRL-SHIFT-F
the search will still be there. There may be someone out there
with a plug-in, but I haven't heard of one. Why you can't delete
the text...?
Gene Kim-Eng
Sounds like the document uses a font not supported
by your Acrobat installation. If you're able to
select the text, right-click, select Properties
and see if you can change to a different font?
Gene Kim-Eng
--- Original Message ---
On 12/12/2006 6:56 PM Robotti, Anne (C
I don't think this is going to accomplish what was asked for
(letting people access and view the files they need but not
move or copy them to another machine or attach them to
email).
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Bill Swallow" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
&g
ll me which 10 you can
live without for this release to meet the new deadline."
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Lisa M. Bronson (TCP)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I returned to work on January 3rd and found out that a 3-week deadline
> had turn
hat
their staffs will have to do to make their decisions work
talk for a while behind closed doors and then the new
requirements are communicated in some broadcast
email that your immediate manager had no more idea
was coming than you did.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: &qu
I've yet to work in an org where consensus was a requirement
before a decision got made. But in the better ones, a manager
who constantly issued decisions that had to be repeatedly
revised because of issues that had not been addressed before
making the decision would not last long.
I wouldn't say
My immediate response to that question is, "because the
documentation group (or its manager) lets itself be treated
that way."
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Beth Agnew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 1:41 PM
Subject: Re
That was pretty much my entire point on what should happen.
Only in my wildest fantasies do all the decisisions made go
as I recommend, or get adjusted to suit documentation issues.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "John Posada" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Ther
ormed trays, etc., are
going to be right behind you in the grumble line. Poor decision
making by management is usually an equal opportunity PITA.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Beth Agnew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 1:41 PM
Subjec
eadlines? (Answer: I don't. Been
there, done that, didn't even get a $%^ T-shirt).
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Bill Swallow" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> What Gene spoke of was buy-in.
__
Author Help file
And if that fails and it becomes clear that your company's attitude
about documentation really is that it's just an incidental to their
"real product," make sure your resume is up to date and look
around. Seriously, not kidding.
GeneK
- Original Message -
From: "Bill Swallow" <[EMAIL
But where are the ruffled feathers in this?
Let me try:
4) The perception of technical writing as a "pink collar" occupation.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Brierley, Sean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Are we whining or whinging yet? Grin.
>
eally* interested to get in touch with me. :)
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Patterson, Jan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I'll ask for forgiveness in advance if this query sounds like I've just
> crawled out from under a rock -- I'd just re
It'd be a *very* bad idea for a lot of the products I've
documented in my time (aircraft rescue equipment,
explosive gas generator modules, semiconductor
process chambers).
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message
From: "John Posada" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> A be
Hasn't been a problem for me on the boards I am subscribed
to (Dice, Monster, STC, and though they've never done me
any good I've not bothered to delete myself from Hotjobs or
Careerbuilder). I have no experience with Indeed.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From:
could, in
theory, be operated without their instruction manuals, but
even without regulatory requirements most people probably
wouldn't think it would make sense.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Brierley, Sean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> The product is king. The
;ve been doing it for the past thirty years.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Milan Davidovic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Check this out:
>
> Dyeing The Pink Collar Mauve: Understanding Technical Communication As
>
narly, and someone who can't be both
and know which direction to go in a given situation is at an
equal disadvantage regardless of gender.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "tarage" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> People gravitate towards jobs they're good at do
necessary support
to an employee who meets them, it is unlikely that you will be able
to enforce them on determinedly uncooperative coworkers or
others by yourself.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> How do you establish the boundaries of acceptable be
in
yourself as a professional. For those people who will not respond,
you pretty much have three options: (1) see if your respective
superiors will support you, and if not (2) try to ignore it or (3) leave.
At one time or another I have done all of the above.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original
Somehow formalizing a system in which the people responsible
for interacting with each other to plan and implement a project
shoot posts at each other instead of actually talking seems to
me like a step in the wrong direction. I wonder how often
Godwin rears his head in these...
Gene Kim-Eng
right for me.
Starting from a home base in Silicon Valley, the list of
destinations includes:
Eastern and Southeastern US
UK (Scotland and England)
Japan
Germany
Armenia
India
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Lisa M. Bronson (TCP)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> D
-wise, I'm a happy
camper here.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
> That makes me wonder, how many of you have less-than-adequate
> equipment for your jobs? I have everything I need here, but on my
> first tech writing job, I continually had to wait for the computer
This is what I've got at home (for some reason I always seem to
have more computing resources at home than I do at work). A
pair of desktops and my old laptop, plus a fourth station to plug
in the office system when I bring it home to use.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
nce
I was in college using a typrewriter), my actual typing speed has always
been pretty much irrelevant.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
> Rae Burgess wrote:
>
> This makes me wonder - how fast do you type?
> Since I never took a formal course in typing (some call it keyboar
h for a 17 year old in 1970 was one heck of a lot of money,
so I figured that not knowing how to type could end up being a
choice between turning in a nicely typed term paper and eating
for a week.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
> WPM by touch typing is another tool in the old kit
My old standby for this is Corel PhotoPaint. The program allows you
to define hotspots in standard shapes or by drawing them free-form,
then generates the appropriate HTML and map files that you just move
or paste in where you need them.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "
sell you
a copy of OEM XP for as low as $100, btw.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Jones, Donna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> We recently bought a new home computer and received the new "feature" of
> Microsoft Vista. As far as my husband can tell,
agers today
install in Windows and hold your hand through the entire
process.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Dan Goldstein" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> You're right, of course, but it isn't too hard for a layman to install
> XP on a *clean* machine.
unlicensed. So what is the value-added of a writer with OTJ
experience and a certificate vs a writer with OTJ experience
and no certificate?
Just curious.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "John Posada" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> A degree from a college or universi
n types of documentation
be produced by "licensed" technical writers, it's just another exercise
in wheel spinning.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "John Posada" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I'd never claim that you couldn't be a very good technical wri
yourself a referral business called "1-800-writer."
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "John Posada" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> The resume is just your word saying you've done those things and we
> all hear stories about samples being present
Okay, this plan I'd be willing to participate in. :)
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Dori Green" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> There's an idea -- let's get a bunch of retired tech writers together for a
> month at a nice resort and
I was just about to reply to your original message, but now I'm
confused. Were you asking for pros/cons for the company, or
for you?
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Al Geist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 7:56 AM
Subject: Re: [TC
They just have to
think about how deeply you're going to be embedded in all their ops
and what the learning curve would be for someone to replace you.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Al Geist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> So, the answer to your question is I
I think the pros and cons for you are not quite so clear-cut. If you're
looking at a multi-year contract, then if you can handle your own
benefits (or better yet, get them through a spouse of partner's
employer), then contracting might be better for you. Example:
all those self-employed business
that might actually be less
beneficial to you is considerable.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Al Geist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Good point about the self-employed business write-offs; however, I own more
> than one business, so I will still be able to tak
specifies that it is
a "work for hire" situation, which means that your client,
not you the creator, is the copyright holder.
See www.copyright.gov.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Brierley, Sean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 8:06 A
tand-alone
work you make for yourself might benefit from a marking.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Brierley, Sean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Good followups. My question was not really about work done for hire
> under contract.
>
> That is, whether I cr
Administration (www.sba.gov).
My experience as a 1099 contractor/consultant was that incorporating
didn't offer sufficient advantages to justify it. If you plan on growing
your enterprise beyond one person, that might change things.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: &q
e candidates my
card with both my office and cell numbers on it and to
encourage them to call *me* if they don't hear back from
HR.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
On 6/11/07, Martinek, Carla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Not surprising -- this ties into the general rud
f sending the "thanks for coming in, but..." letter
or remial puts them out that much.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Jones, Donna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Do you know why I think they do it? So they can keep people hanging as
> long as possi
o do. But once
you've taken up somebody's time with a phone screen or especially a
face-to-face interview, never closing the discussion at all is just rude.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Al Geist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> You can also thank the Inte
sn't want to have to pay you more if you get an advanced
degree and figures that if you get one you'll leave them for someone
who will pay you more.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Brierley, Sean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> At the department meeting today,
position because I found
myself in unresolvable diagreement with a boss over something
I believed was *that* important.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Sue Heim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Funny, a common thread is... do what your boss wants you to do. Is the
e initiative to educate
themselves. Your medical benefits and your 401k don't
directly "support" the company's goals either, but they
don't exist just because your management cares about you.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Cardimon, Craig&
Well, I'd *like* to think that every decision I've ever made
has reflected "the best idea prevails," but I can point to at
least a few occaisions where my choices turned out to be
bad ideas. I expect that people who have worked for me
would probably point to more of these tha
s and stay?
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
> On 6/13/07, Brierley, Sean <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I have not seen a lot of attempts at employee retention over the years.
> Do employers still value retaining employees?
anies lost employees faster
than they could hire them.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Brierley, Sean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> By employee retention, I mean making it so employees want to stay, low
> turnover that is not the result of a bad economy, providing
fire the person, but not until months after
I was gone.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Dori Green" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 7:46 AM
Subject: Re: [TCP] employee retention
> Being basically lazy (that is, efficient), if I have fe
, both the keep important
knowledge and skills working for you and to prevent them from
working for your competition.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Brierley, Sean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 8:25 AM
Subject: Re: [TCP] employee retent
worse for the
patrons than just quitting. OTOH, documented,
non-urban legend cases of food poisoning at high
turnover establishments like KFC and McD's are
actually very low for their volumes.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Chris Borokowski" <[EMAIL PROTECTE
ual raises
that keep pace with what they can get by quitting. Longtime employer-
employee relationships are hardly ever based on compensation.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Al Geist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> When you make a decision to leave, regardless of
Not a recent one, but every few years someone does a survey
of what people get when they change jobs, and over the years
it consistently turns out that people get somewhere between
2X and 3X what the average salary increase at the time is.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: &quo
think
primarily about whatever it is at their current jobs
that has ticked them off at their employer or made
them feel jittery about their longterm prospects
there. "Total compensation" is an HR buzz phrase,
but it is essentially meaningless to most regular
employees.
Gene Kim-Eng
This is "creative writing" week for us. The FAA took six weeks
to review and approve our latest project plan, and we need to
write a presentation to our Board of Directors to explain why it
is only possible for us to accelerate the project to make up for
two weeks of that time.
Ge
go looking for work in these environments
any more if I have a choice.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
> --- Kevin McLauchlan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I wonder how many people get to actually DO that stuff.
__
Auth
I wouldn't know what to charge. I've never charged anyone money
to work on a resume. Most of the people I've done this for probably
couldn't have afforded to pay me.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Jones, Donna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
&
tant. What *is* important is for the first page to make
the reader want to look at the rest of the pages.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Martinek, Carla" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 7:36 AM
Subject: [TCP] How long should a resume be
lose the file?
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "John Posada" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To be honest, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable working with a manager who
> places more priority on format than on contentare
> there also any fonts that ma
interesting enough to catch my attention. In fact, if someone did
send me a truly interesting, attention-getting 40-page resume, I
might want to talk to that person simply because I know I sure
couldn't write one like that for myself.
Gene Kim-Eng
__
nk I have the imagination to see a "nonconformist"
resume's good qualities, but first I have to see the resume. And
anytime I'm in a position to have an opening, it usually means
that I'm really short of spare time to read many resumes. Sucks,
doesn't it?
Gene Kim-En
d in the less than thirty
seconds or so that the resume will most likely to be
viewed), is not that the reader doesn't understand the
job description. It is that the reader doesn't understand
the resume. The old "know your audience" saw
applies to resumes as well as to
Have you ever attempted to engage someone who
does most of his or her communication by text
message in a real life, face-to-face conversation?
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Rick Stone" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Personally, I'm very curious about
o
reverse-engineer the product from them.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Johnson, Joyce" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Does anyone in this group write service manuals?
>
> The company I work for sells automated pharmacy dispensing devices. My
> g
that we think people really need in the body of our documents.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Al Geist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Service manuals are reference materials that more often than not will
> spend
> most of their lives on a shelf or in a seld
s loved
it; the rest probably never removed the shrink wrap.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Al Geist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Uh...okay.
>
> First, the "Functional Description" was included in the service manual at
> the request of th
Speaking as someone who "employs" tech writers, the bottom
line is always a default. I'm just not sure whether "because
management wants it" should be listed as a pro or a con in
an answer to Joyce's question...
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: &
e
products (FM, Acrobat), and I am constantly on the lookout
for viable replacements.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Paula Stern (WritePoint)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I was with you to some degree until I heard the price of $99.
__
x27;s not as if it's a union.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "John Posada" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Paula...the reason I rejoined STC after 15 years was to be able to
> affect change and complain about the current state.
_
sold.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Peter Gold" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> the positive side is that apparently nobody else on
> these lists has had the same
> bad experience.
__
Author Help files and create
awk
my skills or why prospective employers might need them for
me.
Does STC really promote itself as an organization to anyone
but
its own members, current or prospective? As a manager, I've
never received any promotional material from them that
didn't
come to me through m
d SIGs) are still
working well enough to justify the expense of my continued
membership. What happens down the line is another matter.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Milan Davidovic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> The very first bit changed earlier this year. It used t
et in a new
career for life, then bailed when the bubble burst?
If it's the latter, I suppose we're probably better off
without their memberships.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Harkness, Holly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Yes, membership has plummeted
ly don't touch them until I see at
least the second service release come out. After my
experience with an ongoing bug in Acrobat 7, I decided to only buy new Adobe SW
during that period at the end of the product's
lifecycle when they say "buy now and get a free upgrade to our upc
vices," and summarize the work
and any major accomplishments as if they were
all done for the same employer. If you think
your client/s would be impressive to the reader,
you can add "Client List: ..." at the end. This can
also be a useful way to fill out periods in which
you
newer releases of either, TCS might be a reasonable
option to consider. But if I had already bought FM8 or Acrobat 8,
you shouldn't expect to see my order until the 9.0 releases come
out.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Michael Hu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I have
well (we don't
upgrade *anything* around here *every* year).
What I might need and what might save me time or
work does not always align itself with what I can get
the budget for this year... or next.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Michael Hu" <[EMAIL PROTE
Ok, this is the part I'm not seeing. I've transitioned
from one defunct tool to another numerous times in
my working life, so other than avoiding a minor
inconvenience I'm not sure what my interest in this
is...?
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Di
ustomers to
purchase additional product. How bad is for the
customer and Adobe to determine.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Mike Starr" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Unfortunately, you never addressed the original message... the
> original
> messages was tha
that much with local chapter
activities, so it was a relatively minor annoyance
that could have been avoided merely by sending
some notification and a link to change, or more
elegantly by having the change of address come
up with a list of nearby chapters to select from.
Gene Kim-Eng
- O
discussed on their perceived merits (or lack
thereof) without having to raise any issues of legality,
ethics or morality.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Sue Heim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> The original poster has conveniently ignored those of us who've said
rough a corporate account; Adobe I will still
talk to, what I've said about them here notwithstanding).
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Sue Heim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> At one point does any company who is in business stop and draw the
> line?
>
>
much more difficult to lay in wait in the cafeteria to
catch an elusive SME while he/she is weighed down
with a getaway-preventing tray of food if you're not
physically there.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "McLauchlan, Kevin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Jone
Eventually, word gets around and the only people
they can hire are $15-an-hour "tech writers" with
high school diplomas from Kelly or Apple One.
Unless they've found their true "heaven" and are
managing for a company in some small, depressed
town where they are the
to develop them depends on the company and
the manager.
Gene Kim-Eng
- Original Message -
From: "Beth Agnew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> In talking about telecommuting, there were various comments about
> different bosses being more or less amenable to staff working
>
Registration of copyright hasn't been required for
quite a long time now. And violation does not
require a deliberate attempt to distort meaning,
either.
Gene
- Original Message -
From: "Dick Margulis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> That's a violation of copyright law. The speaker has an inhere
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