I just passed the 8-year mark as a technical writer [or, if the Society for Technical Communication (STC) has its way with the US government’s Standard Occupational Classifications (SOC), a technical communicator]. I’m on the cusp of legitimately dangling that covetable modifier “senior” in front of whatever I am in order to designate my experience as a proven producer of quality technical documentation, my ability to successfully plan, manage, and execute assignments in parallel with software development cycles, and my passion for keeping up with new trends in the ever-evolving world of technical documentation.
Senior! It’s incredible. I can distinctly remember when I was a Junior. I couldn’t type nearly as fast as I can now, nor could I babble about learnability, usability, and discoverability. My use of bolded and italicized text was frightfully gratuitous. And to think how I’ve mastered bulleted lists!
I belong to several Yahoo Groups that pertain to my profession and receive daily digests with the ongoing discussions. On slow days, I’ll delve into the digest to gauge the hot topics among technical communicators. A current controversy: What symbols do you use to explain a series of clicks in the software? One meticulous writer has always used arrows (Tools –> Options) but MS Word is turning the arrows into nasty wingdings. So should he use greater-thans (Tools > Option), vertical bars (Tools | Options), or another alternative?
A fervent flurry of responses. The devout greater-thans are outraged at any deviation from the standard greater-than philosophy because it imperils universal user understanding. Those in the vertical bar minority are likewise disgusted that anyone would call their beloved corporate standards into question. Takeaway lesson: If you ever want to rile a technical communicator, just mention anything related to stylistic standards.
At the first company I ever worked at, way back when I was the Junior on a team of five Seniors, a fellow writer was ready to quit because one of our weekly style meetings chastised him for using “they” to describe a singular person and avoid use of a gender. “I refuse to do the ‘he/she,'” he ranted to me afterwards in the kitchenette. “I abhor the ‘he/she.’ I’d rather be grammatically incorrect than clumsy.” I do not think it a coincidence that, two years after the documentation department’s gender-neutrality schism, the company went bankrupt.
