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Advice and Wisdom, Uncategorized

How Do You Know if a Company is Serious About Having A Technical Writer?

Now that I’m semi-retired (always open to short-time, remote work), I have a bit of time to offer some wisdom from years of doing the job. Here’s the first installment.

Many companies SAY that they need Technical Writing support, but do not want to properly support the Technical Writer.

They hamstring the Writer by forcing them to use poor tools.

Example?
A company that only wants to use Microsoft products. Word is nefarious for getting wonky when you have heavy text that runs to more than 100 pages. Its ability to create a Book from individual Chapters is woefully inadequate. Tracking revisions screws up the layout, giving you no idea of what the end product will look like.

Fixing layout problems in Word is time-consuming and frustrating for a professional Writer who is likely under a deadline. Looking for and fixing tabs and extra spaces inserted by the originator (in the aim of making things look better) consumes far too much precious time.

Word is just fine for small stuff, say up to about 50 pages. But its ability to precisely position text and cutlines is another handicap. You add text to a paragraph, and suddenly the layout slews drunkenly and unpredictably around, pushed by a hand that is not yours.

Of course, the better solution is FrameMaker.
Oh, but it’s incompatible!
Oh, but it’s difficult!
Oh, but only one person will know how to use it!

Oh, but it’s way faster, more precise, and bulletproof, once you have your templates the way you like them. People with zero experience can be up and running within minutes, and turn out professional-looking results. Engineers and Technical Staff won’t be tempted to spend hours screwing around with fonts and layout, because it’s all done for them. They can hand off draft material that can then be easily crafted into a finished, comprehensive, straightforward document, and revisions are simple to handle.

Okay, no need to keep hammering on a point that’s been made.

Just need to add the moral: If they INSIST on Microsoft, then they need to be asked, WHY?

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Going Quiet

This may perhaps be the last post to this site. I’ll maintain things here until the day I retire, as it has good information for those of us in the Technical Writing field.

I’m currently working what will be my last job before that retirement occurs. (Headhunters, please take note) I had intended to retire next year, but Life intervened:

My wife, my True Love, Partner in Life and beyond, and my best friend of 46-1/2 years passed about a month and a half ago.

These last few years, I became her full-time caretaker as she battled her way back from falls, and then from Asthma-Onset COPD (WAY different from that type that smokers get). She had gradually grown weaker, although her spirit was undiminished; and her last hospitalisation brought a turning-point in her disease and real light at the end of the long, dark tunnel of physical decline. She was always mentally sharp; indeed challenging me every day to be better.

If there was anything good to this COVID lockdown, it is that I was able to work full-time from home, and therefore be right nearby in case of need – instead of an hour or so away.

Now, the house has lost all its light, and an immense quiet has descended. I celebrate her life and the part I had in it; and find it hard to be deeply sad, as we both have a strong faith and therefore know that we will see each other again.

Meanwhile, my work provides me not only with income to replace her now-ended retirement checques, but also… a distraction from the deep quiet mentioned above.

I love what I do, and work with a great team of people to accomplish great things together.

One cannot ask for more.

I used to be able to listen daily to Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac radio show (before he was disgraced) and he had a great ending: “Be well. Do good work, and keep in touch.”

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“Do you always have to be right?”

This self-righteous judgmental statement was uttered with the deliberate intention to hurt. (And the punch carried plenty of extra weight, because this person is respected in his church.)

It took a long time to work though this, a number of years ago. It has been on my mind lately, and I think it has great relevance here.

First, I have forgiven this person, and the action was akin to letting go of an electric fence.

If you’ve never had the sensation: when you contact the wire, the fence charger senses the current path to ground and comes on at full power. You get a serious whammy if the ground is good and conductive. And it HURTS! Every muscle in your body that’s between the fence wire and the ground path contracts at full force. You have literally no control, until the fence charger cycle turns off. If you’re dumb enough to have contacted the wire with the palm of your hand, the power from the fence charger will cause your hand to contract into a fist, and you can’t let go!

You have to decide to let go of the fence, and do it when the fence charger is between cycles. It’s a deliberate act, and you have to take the chance when it’s given you. Otherwise, you’re in for another serious whammy when the fence charger turns back on in about five seconds.

I’ve let go of this. It took some real time, but anytime I find myself getting wound up about it, I remember the fence charger. Works for me; now let’s move on the the point of this story:

Here’s where I am: God brought me to this point in my life to write. He gave me a curious mind, and the ability to share what I’ve found. Reflecting the title of this posting, I actually enjoy being wrong.

Wait, what?

I enjoy being wrong, because it is an opportunity to learn, and to pass along what I’ve learned. Maybe I can help someone save some time, avoid a mistake, or even more, for them to avoid being hurt or injured.

Second:
I believe that we all have gifts from God, and to deliberately misuse these gifts is a grievous sin.

From 1 Peter 4:10:

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.

Notice: ‘to serve others’, not to judge others. The only time we get to judge anyone is if they are in our employ (for instance, when I was running television crews, I had to judge performance and adherence to the script on a moment-by-moment basis) or if they are our slave. Seems safe to say that neither case applied above.

Third:
What you say in a heated moment reveals a lot about the darkness in your heart. This is also why I don’t care to listen to every-day political stuff. This got the Ephesians into really hot water with Paul.

From Ephesians 4:

29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Pretty rough treatment from Paul, there.

Since we’re also talking about gifts here, one of the other ways I’ve been wired to do things also kicked in and ran like a computer program:

I connect things.

I suddenly saw the connection from this person thinking he recognized something in me (because we see our own faults in others first); and it ran along to other things:

The need to be right is only the visible tip of an iceberg.

If you have to be right, then that means you stop listening to others when their point of view disagrees with yours.

Here’s where I try hard to differ with this person: You listen, you learn about the world around you, you learn better ways of doing things. But you have to listen to the person’s whole point of view!

But what if I find I disagree with you? Should I stop listening there? Of course not!! We’re all entitled to our own opinions; this is one of the very few entitlements in this world. Besides (and this is of paramount importance), unless I listen, I’ll never learn anything new.

Just because I might disagree with you doesn’t give me the right to stop listening, cut you off, and start arguing with you in some high-handed pretense of making you change your mind.

And please notice that you have to stop listening in order to think up clever-minded ‘zingers’, like the above. There’s also the aspect of simple human respect.

Cultivating this churlishness has a subtle and destructive effect upon your personality, beginning with attempting to find a way to disagree about every little thing. Quickly you graduate to being unable to accept favors, advice, and works offered in love. Eventually, nobody wants to be in your presence for fear of being judged.

Being unable to accept others the way they are builds neither your faith nor your wisdom; nor the faith of our fellow man. God does his best work with open hearts and open minds.

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How do I become a Technical Writer?

Decide what you want to be writing about. 

There are many types and kinds of Technical Writers, ranging from those who do highly detailed, contractual-type stuff, to those who do consumer-goods manuals and materials. Get a true English degree (and I don’t mean something like English History), and then get a degree in the field which most interests you.

This shows your passion for the language, and a depth of interest in your chosen path.

Get a LinkedIn account going.

There are lots and lots of good discussions on there about this very thing; and if you don’t have your writing field narrowed down, this will help you figure out what interests you.

Supplement your skills with the ability to graphically imagine concepts. 

Take Illustration courses to see how a grafic (yes, that’s spelled right – this is the context of print and visual arts) comes together. You can’t believe the number of people I’ve run across who cannot begin to think graphically to illuminate the text with a good illustration.

Learn FrameMaker.

‘Frame’ is the premiere tool of the Tech Writer. Anybody who tells you different is full of it. Or themselves. Word is nearly useless in laying out a document. Stuff slides all over the place, grafix end up in the wrong place or get distorted, anything more than a hundred to hundred fifty pages causes it to crash; the list goes on and on.

Learn the art of making a ‘book’ in Frame. Learn how to do templates, for templates are key to getting stuff done in record time in Frame. If you can handle Frame and revise templates to suit the need, you will be invaluable.

The above stuff is what WINS interviews!!

There is a spiritual side to this (or any) occupation.

I am a person of a quiet and deep faith, and now I recommend you get a copy of Cure for the Common Life, by Max Lucado. This book leads you through thinking clearly about what job you are meant to do in life. It helps you find that thing which God made you to do.

Because your career isn’t just work, it’s your ‘fit’ in the whole Creation of things. If you have a passion about what you do, you’ll do far better at it than you would if you just played it safe and did something else.

Read the book with an open mind. We have all been given specific gifts and a particular ‘bent’ for our lives, and the proper use of our talents and passions adds to the great tapestry of the Universe. We all need to seek our particular place in the whole; that place where you’re working and think, “I was made to do this!”

Remember humility.

You can learn something new, even from that one person who really rubs you the wrong way. Yep, that person who brings profane names to mind.

Step out of that mindset and learn to listen. Practice active listening, so you get the concepts correct. Tell the person you’re working with, “Now, I’m going to ask you what may seem like really dumb questions, and that’s just to test my own baseline knowledge. I want to make sure I’m tracking well with you.”

Snap answers are seldom fully correct.

Take the time to think, to allow that part of you that brings research, knowledge, and passion together to generate the most correct answer.

Notice I say ‘mostly correct’, as there seldom is such a thing as a perfectly right answer. Be humble enough to admit this.

Never be ‘married’ to your text.

Always be ready to revise. Your text is based on the knowledge of others, so you have to admit that nobody’s perfect, including yourself.

I wish you well in your endeavours.

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Going Permanent

I’ve been a Contractor for a while now, and the folks I’m currently working with have enjoyed my work so much and it has been useful and on-point, that they are making my position a Permanent one.

I’m grateful and my enthusiasm for the work remains high.

So the site here and this blog may go quiet for some time, but I’ll always check in from time to time (it IS my site, after all).

Meanwhile, if you’re a Tech Writer and are looking for a Contract position, I know of one that’s open.