Anniversary!

Yesterday was an anniversary that is bittersweet. The positive is that I began work at a new job, the negative is that I ended up hating the new job after only a few weeks. One of the reasons I hated being there was the inane things I was required to include in the user manuals I wrote and edited. I probably have written about this before, but the notion that the UI and the doc must match still drives me nuts. Consider this screen print:

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Why do you really need three bold periods, followed by a non-bold period. No one says, "From the File menu, click New Patient dot dot dot." That's not effective communication. People would say, "From the File menu, click New Patient."

The dot dot dot means that, in the software, there is a window that opens.

"Oh, the doc has to match the software *exactly*!"

BULLSHIT!

That was just one of the stupid rules I had to follow.

Another was this. "What is the standard for spaces after a period?"

Answer: "Use one unless it looks funny, then use two."

Yet another was using InDesign to maintain a user manual that was over 100 pages. Use the right tool for the job! And that wasn't all. The TOC? MANUALLY TYPE IT and if there's a change to the document, REVERIFY that the page numbers are not off.

And here's the kicker. I spent hours - days - trying to get InDesign's built-in TOC to function. I set up styles, I defined a template. I created mock sample documents.

Nope. No one was interested. It looked too hard. In my opinion, I think the work had to take as long as it did so that the work would seem valuable.

I am in such a better place now. Great boss and great co-workers. Good work to do as well. I know now that I had to go through 5 months, 3 weeks, 5 days of HELL to end up where I am now.