Re: Been there done that now what?

[Steve Read <sread -at- HURSLEY -dot- IBM -dot- COM>]

Well!  I certainly seem to have struck a chord here.  Are all of us
bored?  I've received more than a few notes from people who are in
the same boat.

The problem seems to be that, as writers, we're typecast.  We don't
know anything about the "difficult" stuff.  After all, a decent
secretary could do our job, right? :-(

The more I think about this, the more I think that it comes down to
advertising (CV, resume, whatever).  I was talking to a friend of
mine the other day, and he's received advice to re-cast his CV and
make himself a "consultant" instead of a writer.  I think I'll do
the same and float it to see what happens.

        Teaching?  Nah, I went into tech writing because I didn't
        want to be a teacher.

        User support?  Maybe, but I've got used to good money, and
        those jobs don't pay real well.

        Multimedia?  Somebody said there are a lot of wannabes doing
        it.  I suspect that's accurate, but boy oh boy is there some
        cool stuff going on.

        Mike Beyries suggested usability testing or release-level
        new feature testing or pre-sales support and development.
        These are interesting ideas.  Establishing  street cred
        (why are *you* qualified to do that?) seems to be the problem.

Hmm.  I must be good for something.
--
Steve Read                     sread -at- vnet -dot- ibm -dot- com
IBM UK                         Not IBM's opinion, blah, blah, blah