Print books have always been a source of comfort for me. When I was a child, I was an avid reader right down to the large selection of hardbound classics handed down to me from my grandmother. Reading was also a favorite pastime when I was growing. In college, I was an English major finally sealing my fate with reading and the printed word.
As a favor to an old friend, I spoke to one of their friend’s kids who got laid off and was forced to go into contract IT work so they could keep paying the bills.
Here is one question and answer that stuck out from our phone call:
Them: What do you find true about contracting?
Me: The very people who will criticize you for the tiniest mistake will be the same people who take credit for your successes and good ideas after your contract gig ends.
Unfortunately, depending on the organization, it happens to full-time employees too.
I’ve been out of full-time contracting for almost two years and recently thought back to some of the stranger things I saw during the contract technical writer chapter of my life:
Once upon a time, contractors could always count on other contractors. I stayed too long at the party. The contracting market I entered was not the same one I left.
What weird things did you see as a contract technical writer?
Photo by Alex Kotliarskyi on Unsplash
I was once asked in a job interview: “Why do I stay a technical writer when it must be such a dull and boring profession?” After the meeting when I was peeling rubber out of the parking lot, I took a few moments when I was decelerating to think about some of the more interesting moments (at least to me) from my career:
Much of my technical writing career has been spent working in the trenches directly with technical teams. Unfortunately, this means I don’t know any junior technical writers anymore.
I’ve seen a lot in my time as a technical writer, and if I did advise new or junior technical writers, it would be the following:
