Being dumb...

Subject: Being dumb...
From: Andrew Plato <aplato -at- EASYSTREET -dot- COM>
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 13:14:07 -0700

I've been getting a chuckle out of this list for a long time.  Ah, I do love to read posts from people with a more inflated sense of self-worth than myself.
 
Nevertheless, I really liked Eric's post about typists becoming tech writers.  Thanks Eric.  It was nice.  It made me want to reveal a super-duper dark secret that only I know about... <--- big fluttering satire flag
 
We are all dumb. 
 
Amazing isn't it.  For a long time I thought I was a brilliant, rational tech writer.  But then, I realized, I am a certified, card-carrying, slap-me-on-a-slab-and-whack-off-a-limb moron.  Despite my mammoth technical writer ego - I screw things up.  I produce crappy documents, I mix tenses, I misspell things, I forget what a computer does, I forget to wash my hands, I leave my fly open, etc.
 
Guess what, so do you.  We all have a "dumb-center" in our brain.  For the most part it does all the work while we sit around and think about sex.  I don't need some mega-advanced degree from some prestigious vine covered university to tell me this.  It is wired right into our DNA.  It comes with your pituitary gland and fingernails. 
 
Fortunately, 51% of the time the "dumb-center" gets things right, and that is ultimately what makes me a decent tech writer. 
 
If you can spell most words correctly and produce quality instructions most of the time -- you're doing okay. Tech writing is a skill not a universal force that binds us and surrounds us. You can learn it anywhere.  Hell, I never took a single tech writing course in my life I'm doing okay.  I learned on the job, pecking away at it.  Slow and methodical. 
 
So before you whip out that 17.22 mm fuel-injected turbo trans-dimensional defensive tech writer ego - better think about that unmotivated slob in the next cubicle. When Microsoft is made illegal and the Y2K bug grids humanity to a halt - the slob's methodical, semi-conscious typing may be more valuable in the job market than your high-powered know-it-all FrameMaker skills.  While you are busy preaching the gospel of SGML or defending the Timeless Art of Technical Communication, the dolt in the other cubicle may be poised to knock you and your brilliance back down to bedrock.
 
People are amazing beings if you give them a chance.  The surest way to encourage incompetence is to tell people "you can't do that."  With a little encouragement and positive feedback, people can accomplish great things.  And people who think they are great can accomplish nothing. 
 
And with that, you may return to your tepid drudgery, already in progress. 
 
------------------------------------------------
Andrew Plato
President / Principal Consultant
Anitian Consulting, Inc.
Serious Business and Technical Solutions


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