The Accidental Technical Writer

Image credit: Alexas Fotos via Pixabay

Innovation is part of who I am, yet is reserved for where innovation feels needed.
I became an “accidental” technical writer because I would encounter instructions in computer textbooks that made no sense. Instead of assuming I couldn’t learn it or was dumb, I would tear it down, figure it all out, then rewrite the instructions in a way that made sense. I then would put my technical rewrites in a file labeled, “Cheat Sheets.” Before long, computer professionals who heard about my cheat sheet file would check with me when they had a question concerning confusing textbook information.

When I see a need, I find a way.
Another company I worked for kept rejecting our computer coding designs. Our progress stalled as their rejections were based on unwritten rules that changed from manager to manager – and sometimes from day to day. So, I solicited and received permission to write a coding standards-manual. It worked. Programmers stopped getting their code rejected by management, and a system design was written that was so uniformly and well-documented that we received a commendation letter from a major government client. Not everything should be standardized, but that which benefits from standardization should be.