technical writers are masochists

[Alan Dayley]

What you have described is the following engineering philosophy:

"Coding matters.  Design is secondary.  Accurate testing is nice but not
nessisary.  Accurate documentation also is not nessisary."

This is hard on the testers and writers since any problems in these areas
are concidered the fault of the testers and writers.  It is not their
fault, they just have to wear the dirt when it is thrown.  It is a
contradiction between lip service to testing and documentation and actions
that happer them.  Testers and writers get stuck in the middle.

Been there.  Done that.  It usually takes someone from the outside
(consultant or new VP) to correct the process since the tester/writer is
percieved as whining.  You can only manage yourself. 3 choices: 1-Live with
it (not fun).  2-Fight it (even less fun).  3-Go find a new job (the path I
have taken).  The third option is often the only option because the first
means you get beat up all the time and the second usually only produces bad
performance reviews.

Alan

At 10:36 PM 5/28/01 -0700, you wrote:
><vent_mode>
>
>Is it standard practice for the programming/engineering staff to say we have
>done a s??t-load of modifications to the software.  It is now on the server.
>Please log on and figure out what the modifications are.  We are much too
>important and busy to give you a list of the modifications.  When you have a
>list of modifications, please figure out what they probably do, then submit
>updated drafts of the documentation that we never reviewed the last time you
>submitted them for review.
>
>What if the programmer is also the owner of the company?
>
>
>They actually resent my asking for developer specifications, expecting me to
>configure the application, run test cases, and deduce from the application's
>behavior what functions, features, database fields, etc. actually do.
>Asking questions about the application is regarded as wasting their time
>with *estupiiid* questions.
>
></vent_mode>
>
>
>Any advice on how to manage the manager?
>
>   Any advice on how to *become* a programmer or manager?
>
>-----Original Message-----
>Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2001 5:51 PM
>To: Trent Shipley
>Cc: Dennis Yowell (Dennis Yowell); Deborah Jackson
>
>Trent,
>            There is a new version of DCX on the conference room system
>which has many of the new fields added to Cliacct and credcard.  Please
>review and update your IDT related docs.
>
>
>________________________________________________
>See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doesn't
post to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail.
>
>PLUG-discuss mailing list  -  PLUG-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
>http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>
>
>
-
/------------------------------------------
|Alan Dayley             www.adtron.com
|Software Engineer       602-735-0300 x331
|ADayley@adtron.com
|
|Adtron Corporation         
|3710 E. University Drive, Suite 5
|Phoenix, AZ  85034
\-------------------------------------------