Thursday, August 12, 2004

Fan mail from some flounder? Jenny is rid of a troubling cow-orker, but doesn't sound any too happy about it: And so it ends.... In a previous post, I complained about having to work with a tech writer who couldn't write. Or, more accurately,... [the creative tech writer] I had a somewhat similar experience some years ago, in one of my early tech writing jobs. I was hired in on contract to help with a number of projects coming down the pike. A few weeks later, another group at the same small company (they did the internationalized versions) hired, as a regular employee (not contract) a writer who had gone through the same TW certificate program as I had (UC Santa Cruz Extension). And they assumed that, because she had graduated from the program a quarter before I had, that therefore she was a more experienced and qualified TW than I. Thing was, she had gone through the entire program without ever using a computer. She was completely baffled by Windows. She'd do things like download daily updates of translated files to her desktop, without any organizing principle, all with similar names, so there was no way to keep track of the most recent files without opening them. Couldn't comprehend Windows Explorer or any basic file management concepts or tasks. And this is before having to write anything. I would offer, and try, to help, but I think she was so afraid of admitting what she didn't know that she wouldn't accept assistance. Instead, she worked 20 hour days to make up for what she couldn't learn. The upshot? I left after three months, when it became obvious that all the projects I had been hired to work on were being cancelled. The flounder? She somehow lasted nearly another year. I don't know how. But apparently that group's manager didn't care or didn't know that he wasn't getting the best performance he could. 3:10:16 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

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