Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Thoughts of a Working Man
I’ve decided to keep a journal of my thoughts about my work. While there may be some comments on my current work environment or colleagues, this is really about me and how I see the work I do in relation to the wider world in which I live.
The first place to start—and the thought that has energized the creation of the journal—is with my realization that as a Technical Writer I am viewed as a luxury item in the places where I work. It’s not that I don’t bring a lot of skills to the workplace, nor is it that my skills are not recognized. It’s just that the way the workplace has evolved, my talents and skills are not considered essential to the organizations for whom I’ve been working.
Everybody needs documentation: tutorials, help files, user manuals, reference materials, operating instructions. This need is recognizable and recognized. However, generally these days it is recognized as an adjunct to the primary need to get the product out.
Perhaps part of my problem is that, including my present employment, each of my previous three jobs has been for a department that developed its product for in-house use. They don’t deliver their product to outside customers. I think when the ‘customers’ of software are within the same overall organization as the development unit there is a feeling that ‘good enough’ is good enough.
And perhaps it is good enough. Within an organization, users have access to developers. Often developers will do some ad hoc training or even write something down about an application or feature that gets passed around and serves as both documentation and training. And if an organization is happy with that, who am I or anyone else to suggest otherwise to them?
Still—and this is the real issue for me—seeing myself as the past three organizations have seen me, as a luxury, doesn’t make me feel particularly wanted or useful or like I’m doing anything they really value. I’m not talking about the realization that others can be hired to replace me. What I’m talking about is the realization that if I’m not around to do my job, I’m not apt to be replaced at all.
That’s what happened at my last two jobs. In one, I was part of a 20% staff reduction that eliminated the whole documentation group. As far as I know, the work we were doing is not being done by anyone else. Some of the people I’ve stayed in touch with have lamented that, but management has not seen fit to even reassign some of the responsibilities to others. I guess it wasn’t a priority anymore, and that’s not just a low priority, that’s not even on the list.
My most recent job, prior to my current job, was to do some training materials for an IT organization. Long before I completely finished that job, they made noises about wanting to keep me around, but they had nothing for me to do. I literally spent the last six weeks I was there reading library books. I finally left in disgust. (Hey, I can skate with the best of them; I’m doing that now in fact. But when it’s a crappy environment and physically uncomfortable enough that I’d rather be doing nothing at home, that becomes very hard for me to stick with it.)
My current job came about only because a key member of the development team was leaving after a dozen years, and they wanted to capture her expertise before she left. Then it was determined that I had done well enough with that assignment that they had a few others they wanted me to do. I have no doubt, though, that if the budget continues to tighten, I’ll be told I’m not being renewed. I’m a luxury they can do without.
That feeling doesn’t do a lot for my self-esteem at the moment. I’m 56 years old. I don’t plan to be working in ten more years. I plan to be retired, and by retired I don’t mean working at a fast food restaurant or grocery store. I mean not working at all for my daily bread. (I might work a couple of days a week at a golf course as a starter or ranger for free golf.)
What I need, though, is something to do that makes me feel useful to society. I’ve been looking into what I can do to help with poverty eradication. I strongly believe that we need to attack the conditions of poverty if we’re going to improve society. Poverty breeds more poverty. A person in poverty over breeds for the resources at their disposal, and this creates more children who are disadvantaged and need help to be productive human beings. That’s what I’m looking at currently.
As this journal unfolds, I’ll have more to say on this topic, I’m sure. I also want to talk about the workplace. I work in the white collar world of computers and cubicles, and I don’t find a lot of people talking about how demoralizing it is.
