The God of Technical Writing

By Alfred P M

Hello, this is the God of Technical Writing here. You can call me GOTW. (It's pronounced 'got', the 'w' is silent.)

(Writer's Note -- If you had to exclaim about something in technical writing, then you say, "My GOT(W)," which actually sounds like you're a German speaking English.)

The reason I'm writing to you is because my Inbox has been flooded by emails from technical writers (apart from spam mail) and I thought that I'd answer the questions you've asked. Ever since they published my email address in that movie (Writer's note: Bruce Almighty), my Gmail account has always been full. Thank God they increased the space to 2 GB.

Before I get to the questions, I'd like to make a request. (No, I am not a God who commands, as some of you may have been led to believe.)

Please understand that I get emails by the gazillion. The only way I can distinguish your email from spam is through the subject line. So, please write proper subject lines and use the tag TW for all your emails from now on, otherwise they might get lost as spam.

Anyway, after wading through 3,146,239 emails (writer's note: on April 7, 2005 at 10.23 p.m.), here are the three questions that came up in every email.

• I get no respect from the developers/engineers in my company. What should I do?

• Can you tell me what is the salary for a technical writer with -------- years of experience in ---------? (Writer's note -- GOTW is aware that this sentence is not grammatically correct but that's the way the question was received.)

• Can you tell me whether I should learn --------------- (choose one from: FrameMaker, Word, RoboHelp, XML) or --------------- (choose one from: FrameMaker, Word, RoboHelp, XML)?

Here are my responses.

Response to Question No. 1

Join the club. I get no respect from those guys down below. Satan and his cronies are always putting me down. And, I can't even ask anyone; I'm supposed to have all the answers. If you have any suggestions, I'm willing to listen.

My method is that I ignore the barbs and continue with my good work. Works for the most part, except when Satan uses below the belt techniques, which is not fair since I play by the rules.

Response to Question No. 2

What in Satan's unholy name is the STC doing? Can't they publish a standard list of salaries by city? (Writer’s Note: It is surprising that GOTW was not aware that STC actually publishes salary surveys.) If they can't, maybe you can go through the TWIN archives. I know that it's hard to search (yes, even for me) but the archives do have some important information.

Response to Question No. 3

I must admit that this question stumps me. I get requests from different companies (who sell their products) asking me to be a spokesperson for them. I don't do advertisements, so I decline them. But, when I read their brochures, every tool says that they can do everything. What do they think they are? Gods? (Writer's note: I heard laughter at this point.)

Because so many of you asked this question, I thought long and hard about it. Even downloaded some demos (FrameMaker took way too long to download and I have a high-speed broadband connection) and checked them out.

The jury is still out on this one, so I'll leave it for you to figure it out. Just remember that whatever tool you use, it's just a tool.

And, contrary to popular belief, Bill Gates is not Satan. You won't believe the number of people that pray to me because of using the software his company makes.

Finally, I'd like to wish you all the happiness and blessings in technical writing. I bless you.

***

Writer's Note -- This communiqué was downloaded from GOTW to this writer over on the GOD channel, while he was surfing channels. Some changes may have been made (in addition to formatting) to clarify GOTW's statement.

Alfred P M is a freelance writer living in Bangalore, India. He’d like to state that he does not in fact watch the GOD channel.