Let's Get Brainwashed.

Technical writers, for the first time, have been recognized as a career in the Dept of Labor's Occupational Outlook Hanbook.

http://tinyurl.com/ylrfnpm


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There are days I feel really helpful and valuable at work, and then there are days I feel like a note taking secretary.

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Here's my checklist at the end of the day.




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In 90 minutes I've already finished two things for today.




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One thing that drives me crazy is after asking someone to review a doc I wrote, they say it's good, so I send it out to everyone, and a day later the reviewer wants to make all kinds of changes. This happened twice for the same doc in the last week. Lesson learned. Give this reviewer a fake deadline and see if they come back two days later with changes. By the way, the changes were not significant. Just minor details that are definitely helpful, but the previous version didn't instruct anything wrong.


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It pays to work in a high rise building.




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The day after the Human Resources girls moved to another floor, the machines rebelled against us. First the cappuccino machine stopped working. Then the scanner refused to send images of our important documents to the network drive's folder. We learned to wait for the IT Department to fix our problems.

And then the printer became stubborn. It jammed every time someone sent a print job to it. And no one talked to each other, so when one person gave up on fixing it, a minute later, someone showed up to a surprise: the printer screen blinking red, and its door open like an unhinged jaw. I sat in front of it and heard it all, but said nothing. It wasn't my place to explain to the vice presidents that the machines were rebelling.

I called up the HR girls, told them the situation. They thought the machines were experiencing separation anxiety, and told me to pet the machines and say nice things. I said they should be good parents and visit more often.

The residents on our floor discussed throwing the machines out the window. We thought about re-enacting the scene from Office Space, where they bash the fax machine in a field. Instead, we found out the network paths to other printers, and overloaded those simple machines, so that they jammed too.

Then, we stopped printing so much. It wasn't a collective decision. One by one people stopped using the printers and scanners. The cappuccino machine disappeared and a simple coffee machine took its place. And instead of an ice machine with a cold water spout, we now have a water cooler.

The printer, no longer needed on our floor, reunited with its lady parents. The HR girls say they have no probems with it. I spied them once feeding it ivory paper and stroking its paper feeder like it was an itchy ear. The printer purred and plopped out perfect copies of presentations.

I'm working on making a chart for a project. They wanted it to be color coded, and have checkboxes to designate who pays what expenses. The color codes were to highlight when some is non-billable, potentially billable, or unknown.

Did I lose you? Those words were confusing to me. I told the project team that by using negative words (NON-billable), it makes the reader have to think. Instead of saying what it is NOT, just say what it is! So many light bulbs came on in the room when I said this, I was almost blinded.

So now we have a code for Corporate Pays (instead of Non-billable). Readers will know exactly who pays it instead of having to think backwards Ahh, much better.

Before:
Non-billable (Reader: "Okay, not billable means not paid by Party B, so therefore it must be Party A").
Corporate Pays (Reader: "Got it! The company pays, and not Party B.)

Today my neighbor turned to me and started talking. 50 minutes later the phone rang and my neighbor had to go. Why did I just sit there and listen to it? I looked at the clock once and was going to say "I have to go to a meeting," but my neighbor spoke so fast and obviously wasn't looking for a conversation, but for someone to vent to. I don't mind listening at times, but it seems every time we talk, it turns into a long monologue. I feel like a captive audience.

Today I'm making a chart with colors!

A funny, odd thing today. I was in a meeting with a girl who was pacing around the room. I felt like she was my teacher. She couldn't stand still. Then she halted before the window, paused and said, "I'll be right back. I'm going to," and she paused again, then added, "I'm going to get some tea. Want anything?"

I got the impression she needed to run to the restroom. I thought it funny she didn't want to say that. Whatever - it was fine with me. Maybe she was being polite, or maybe she was really getting tea.

But then she came back empty-handed. "We're out of green tea," she said. "Oh well."

She didn't know that an hour before, I had made a cup of green tea, and the tea drawer was bursting with green tea bags.

Last week I wrote some training materials for an accounting system. Today we had a training session, where people could watch a demo and follow along in the material I had written. We had people from several offices in Europe watching through the Internet. The accountants were invited to provide comments so that I could make the training materials and procedures better. A few interesting things popped up. First question: when should you finish this process? Every office has a different timeline. Some need five days, others 15, and here in the US, they don't know - as soon as possible was the answer. Okay, so why does it have to be different? we wondered. Well, in the US they have over 100 accounts, but in Europe it's only 5 to 8.

Then another thing came up. A new feature of the accounting system automates several steps. One woman in the room said she wasn't comfortable with using the automated part. She preferred to be thorough and manually compare every item in the system to her records. This meant it could take her days to do this. "But the system could be wrong!" she said. She refused to try the new procedure.

When the people left, we discussed this issue in our meeting. The other project members said to keep the procedure as written, which is about the automated process. I said we should try to get her to try the automated process and get her buy in, rather than force the automated way on her. "No time for that," they said. "Let her waste her time." But then, I pointed out, she will be doing her own thing, and the "official" way, as written down will be another, so what's the point of having something written down if they're not following it?

This is a common issue I deal with. Is it better to write down the way people actually do their job, even if it wastes time, or is wrong? Or is it better to write it down the correct way, even if they will still do their own thing? The biggest part that is missing is the project team not working with their users to get them comfortable with the new way. Instead, I feel like the accountants are now forced to deal with a change they don't like. But if they felt comfortable to try the new way, maybe they'd like it and see it really does save time.

I was asked to help write a user guide for a new web site. I had originally volunteered to write the whole thing, beginning to end, but they didn't seem to want me involved at first. Well, then they asked me to proofread it, so I couldn't help but give some comments on the usability of it. The guide had been written with a lot of abstract words, a lot of terminology that most people wouldn't understand, left out details that a new user would need to know, and more. In fact, the biggest fault (I thought) was that it didn't say anywhere in the guide that this was for a Web site. Instead, it used fancy words like "enterprise portal" and "collaboration spaces."

So, after my initial suggestions, I was asked to rewrite it. I pulled out my red pen and scratched X's across every page and started over. (Not really.) I had a couple of fights over terminology. I am really, really against writing things that sound nice but mean nothing for the reader. If it's a user guide, readers need to know concrete details. Anyway, the guide is almost complete now, and I am happy with the way it ended up. It's not a book to bring to the beach, but it will help people when they start to use the portal - I mean Web site.

Time to hang up my superhero cape until next week's episode. Tune in!

I had a meeting yesterday with a group of consultants. Some of them I have met before, but 2 of them were new to me. So after shaking hands with them, they immediately whipped out business cards for me. Then everyone started whipping out cards and exchanging them.

Now, I don't have business cards at this job. My previous one I did. I felt like the new consultants were waiting for me to give them a card, but I sat down, and they had a look on their faces like I had broken the ritual. I didn't want to say, "Sorry, I don't have any cards," because then I'd sound like a fraud, like I wasn't supposed to be playing this game, but I had won because I already had cards from them. Like I pretended to know the secret handshake and then fouled it up at the end.

So the meeting started. They used lots of terms that make my brain shut off. Here are some examples:

• Entity level
• Forensic accounting
• Risk controls
• Transparency
• Gaps identified/Gaps remediated/Gaps with no deadline
• Compliance
• Business Unit

Wow, was I impressed yesterday to see a guy in the men's restroom, standing at a urinal, taking care of business hands free. He actually hand one hand on his hip, and the other holding his Blackberry. So he was scrolling through stuff on his Blackberry, making its tick-tick-tick sound, in conjunction with his own tinkling sound. Multi tasking at its best!

During lunch I went to the museum and hung out in the Rothko room. This one is my favorite.




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I finally broke down and bought new shoes, since the oxfords I bought were still too painful. Instant relief! I got two pairs: one pair of slip ons and one pair with laces to ensure no more foot problems. And here's a new tie.














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Why do elevators have mirrors? Is it a safety thing? Elevators are so awkward, especially with mirrors. I know anthropologists have done studies on elevators. I want to know why some designer or building code has to make an awkward situation even more awkward.

Today two guys were in the elevator with me, asking questions about my company, and then they said something about another company and laughed. I had no idea what they were talking about. They said, "Did you read that article?" And I said no. They talked to me in the mirror. In other words, we all stared ahead at ourselves, watching our reflections talk to each other. At that moment when I said no, it was like I had failed the test. I didn't keep up with our industry, and their eyes seemed to be questioning my presence in the building. I wondered if they felt they had revealed too much, and now I was going to expose their company knowledge to the world. Luckily, the trip down to the first floor was over, and they went to the right and I went to the left.

ELEVATORS:SROTAVELE

Labels: elevators

Many times people write about how to make decisions, but it's a block of sentences and hard for people to scan and find their current situation.

Something that could help is an If/Then table. Similar to the Who/Does What table, it reduces the number of repeated words and calls out the differences so readers can quickly see their options.

Do you always need a table? Here are some tips:

If it's a single condition and single response, write a sentence.

If Baby is put in a corner, then leap across the room and rescue her.

If it's one condition, but 2 options, use a yes/no response.

Did the bully put Baby in the corner?

If yes, leap across the room and rescue her.
If no, continue dancing on stage.

When there are multiple conditions and multiple responses, use a table. Here’s an example:


BEFORE

If James Bond wants to change his identity, then create a new passport for him, or happy with his identity, no action is needed.But if James Bond isn’t happy with the ticket price, upgrade him to first class and write off the price increase to Miscellaneous Fees.

If he wants a nice car, deliver a Ferrari as soon as possible by boat. Do not deliver by helicopter, even if he requests it.

After


Then ...

If James Bond…
Wants to change his identity	Create a new passport for him.
Is happy with his identity	No action is needed.
Is not content with the plane ticket price	Upgrade his ticket to first class. Write off the additional expense to Miscellaneous Fees.
Prefers an expensive car	Order a Ferrari to be delivered by boat. Note: Do not deliver by helicopter, despite any demands

I like to write in tables. It really helps simplify things and makes thing clearer for the reader.

One type of table I use often is "Who/Does What." It's 2 columns, and can be a simple list of who is doing what activities. If people see a paragraph block, they groan about reading it. A table is visually interesting, has less words, and can be scanned quickly by the reader.Here's an example:

Instead of something like this:
Billy will be responsible for making breakfast, feeding the dog and cat, and cleaning the house, while Mary will eat, work, and drink. And of course their dog Spot will sleep, chase the cat, eat, and sleep again.

Try something like this!



A silly example, but you get the point, right? I'll be writing about other kinds of tables soon.

Labels: tables

If you recall, 2 years ago I went to this particular kind of training every month in another state. I learned about quality control, process improvement, statistics, stuff like that. Well, this training has a certification program. To get certified, I need to complete 2 projects. I did 1 at my previous job, and was trying to do another at my new job. The problem is that this is no longer part of my job description. So I kinda dropped the idea of getting certified since the project I was working on wasn't moving.

Well, my instructor called me yesterday to see if I still want to get certified. I'd like to, just to have it on my resume, but I don't want to do the work. It's boring and difficult because you have to get other people to do things, and I'm not really in charge of these process improvement projects. He said I have until the end of February. So I am grudgingly going to revisit this possibility with my manager. Maybe there's another project I could do. I don't know. It's boring stuff. But it's kinda like getting a diploma. After all that suffering in training, getting this certificate means a lot of things in several job industries. I'm over halfway done, though. Blah...

On the way to work I heard an interesting story on the radio. It was about a new book called The Checklist Manifesto. It's for doctors, and it's about the importance of having a checklist to reduce errors and not diagnose something wrong.

I am especially interested in this because checklists are a kind of technical writing. I make checklists as part of my job. Most people prefer them over pages of procedures. Checklists are useful for people already familiar with a process, but need some reminders. It's crazy to realize all the things we try to remember, and as humans, there's always a chance for error. A checklist doesn't always stop an error, but in more life-threatening situations (especially for hospitals, not so much for financial companies), a checklist could help. It sounds like there is some research in the book on how doctors initially rejected checklists, but later the majority found them important.

People can get offended with such things - they might take it that after all their training, all their experience, they shouldn't need a checklist. I think we all mentally create checklists, but the problem is that they?re in our heads, and if you're working with a team, everyone's checklist might be different or slightly off. Even though standardization sounds like it kills creativity, there are many situations where it's needed so that people don't mess things up. If you were a patient, would it bother you, or even comfort you, to know that all the doctors and nurses had a checklist?

Technical writing saves the day again!

Here's the article:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122226184

The first work day of the new year is off to a good start. I've been very productive, and still have more to do. Everyone is pleasant today (except for one person, but he's always complaining anyway). I thought it would be hard to get here, and hard to focus, but it wasn't a problem at all. I hope I have more days like this in the new year.

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