Identity Crisis
Oct. 28th, 2005 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenWell. I am no longer who I thought I was; I have been reclassified: I am not a programmer.
No, I haven't lost my job. I may have mentioned that I've been doing documentation the last several months, which I took to be a thing of them not having confidence in my programming abilities. Well...
Now it seems that Management have been thinking about how to restructure the company, and moving people around into four "divisions" with somewhat more well-defined focus (probably needed as the company has been getting bigger). Originally we were basically just "Development" and "Support", but now it's "Research", "Technology", "Products" and "Support". And me, the odd one out. Yes, they still want me, but not to do programming: I am now the Document Writer Of The Company, in charge of manuals, brochures ("product literature for customers"), and the company website. We haven't actually had anybody before whose specific job was documenting -- which of course meant that, as usual for software, the documenting tended to come as an afterthought. But now it seems that they want me to do it because I'm good at it, and it is true that it's probably harder to find a good technical writer than it is to find a good programmer, because one has to be able to be a good enough programmer to understand the programs one is documenting, and a good enough communicator so as to spread enlightenment in text form.
The restructure is coming into action on Monday, with various people moving around to different offices (including me). Ironically, I'm back in my old cubbyhole downstairs. Anyway, my "new" position is now, as I said, Documentation, and I don't actually come underneath any one division, so they plonked me under the "Research" division (which means that I still have the same manager, which is good).
Of course there's a little negative voice which wants to say "see, you're hopeless as a programmer" but let's be honest here, I'm not a hotshot programmer. I'm good, but I'm not that good. Wheras I know that I am good at documentation, good at making things clear, good at being precise. And it will be good to do things that are crying out to be done properly at last.
My chief fear/worry on that front is the "product literature for customers": I don't want to be a marketroid!
On the upside, it just occurred to me, there's got to be less stress in documentation because documents don't have BUGS! They have errors, sure, and while that is, strictly speaking, a "documentation bug", the correction of such bugs is trivial and straightforward compared to trying to track down why this $@#&%^$ program isn't behaving correctly.
And it's not like I'm going to stop programming; I'll just be doing it as a hobby instead of a profession. I wonder if that means that I'll have to change my "occupation" when filling out forms? Of course, the sad thing is that "Technical Writer" has less apparent status, from what I've seen. On the other hand, who am I trying to impress, eh?
No, I haven't lost my job. I may have mentioned that I've been doing documentation the last several months, which I took to be a thing of them not having confidence in my programming abilities. Well...
Now it seems that Management have been thinking about how to restructure the company, and moving people around into four "divisions" with somewhat more well-defined focus (probably needed as the company has been getting bigger). Originally we were basically just "Development" and "Support", but now it's "Research", "Technology", "Products" and "Support". And me, the odd one out. Yes, they still want me, but not to do programming: I am now the Document Writer Of The Company, in charge of manuals, brochures ("product literature for customers"), and the company website. We haven't actually had anybody before whose specific job was documenting -- which of course meant that, as usual for software, the documenting tended to come as an afterthought. But now it seems that they want me to do it because I'm good at it, and it is true that it's probably harder to find a good technical writer than it is to find a good programmer, because one has to be able to be a good enough programmer to understand the programs one is documenting, and a good enough communicator so as to spread enlightenment in text form.
The restructure is coming into action on Monday, with various people moving around to different offices (including me). Ironically, I'm back in my old cubbyhole downstairs. Anyway, my "new" position is now, as I said, Documentation, and I don't actually come underneath any one division, so they plonked me under the "Research" division (which means that I still have the same manager, which is good).
Of course there's a little negative voice which wants to say "see, you're hopeless as a programmer" but let's be honest here, I'm not a hotshot programmer. I'm good, but I'm not that good. Wheras I know that I am good at documentation, good at making things clear, good at being precise. And it will be good to do things that are crying out to be done properly at last.
My chief fear/worry on that front is the "product literature for customers": I don't want to be a marketroid!
On the upside, it just occurred to me, there's got to be less stress in documentation because documents don't have BUGS! They have errors, sure, and while that is, strictly speaking, a "documentation bug", the correction of such bugs is trivial and straightforward compared to trying to track down why this $@#&%^$ program isn't behaving correctly.
And it's not like I'm going to stop programming; I'll just be doing it as a hobby instead of a profession. I wonder if that means that I'll have to change my "occupation" when filling out forms? Of course, the sad thing is that "Technical Writer" has less apparent status, from what I've seen. On the other hand, who am I trying to impress, eh?
