Explaining Tech Writing to a Retired Man

Editor's Note: Before reading the rest of this post, I want to be very clear. I really like my job & I really like the work I do on a daily basis. This post is not meant to be interpreted as bitching / complaining. It is merely reporting the current situation with a dash of my opinion to draw parallels between what I think about what I do on a daily basis & how I think there should be changes to the way I do the work I do on a daily basis.

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Last night, I went up to Cedar Rapids to go with Dad to a grieving / faith sharing session at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (Saint E's for short). Mom's death in December 2014 is still a difficult thing for Dad to deal with and to come to grips with, especially since he was married to Mom for 50+ years. When I had been up to see him a couple of weeks ago, during our conversation, he mentioned that he had gone the day before. The sessions are each Thursday. I told him that I wouldn't be able to go to the next session (at the time, 10/22 - Alex's birthday), but that I would go with him to the following one, which was last night.

That's why we were in the new fancy-smancy restaurant within the Hy-Vee on Edgewood Road for supper. I had a macaroni & cheese cheeseburger, which was an open face cheeseburger with mac & cheese on top of it. Damn! It was good! The fries left a little to be desired, but that burger was awesome!

Anyways, Dad and I had the opportunity to talk. He asked about work & so I explained to him about how we had started out with these ideas for our Next system:

1. No procedures
2. No screen shots
3. Online only with no PDF (printable version)

Then I went on to explain that the first customer feedback asked us to have:

1. Procedures
2. Screen shots
3. Online & PDF (printable version)

Dad thought it was funny how what we had started out saying we were not going to do became exactly what we were asked to do and what we do now. I also described how I love the idea of reusing content, though I know Dad wouldn't understand that phrase so I talked about how Customer A had a file so then when Customer B came along, Customer A's file was copied and all the references to Customer A were replaced with Customer B. I mentioned how Customer B wanted to have changes so then there were two versions of the same information with minor differences. Then Customer C came along and Customer B's file was copied and changed to reference Customer C. Dad's face showed that he understood the problem.

Then, I said that because we had started out thinking we were only going to be online, the tool we chose worked for that but now, since we had to a PDF, the tool we are using is not the right one. I said it was like starting out using a mallet hammer and then trying to do the same work with a claw hammer. It's not the right tool for what we're trying to do.

There were many other things we talked about as we awaited our food.