Analyzing the situation

When I found myself unemployed and looking for options, I had a few things on my side and a few unique problems on the horizon. On the plus side, I had an employed wife and a few thousand dollars in the bank. I also had this blog, which generates enough income to provide some cushion, but not enough to pay all of my bills.

What I did not have was a single freelance client. For a while, I had balanced freelancing with my last job, but when my job grew more demanding I stopped freelancing. Additionally, although my wife was employed at the time, she had already made plans to take the next year off to finish her Master’s Degree. This meant I only had about two months before our income took another major hit.

Establishing an income with easy sources

As you know, there are some low-paying but easy-to-land opportunities on the web. I’m not going to discuss which service I used, but I found an online content provider and started churning our quick, moneymaking content for them. It wasn’t particularly enjoyable work, but I was able to start earning again within days of losing my job. I made about $2500 over the course of two months. It allowed me to feel productive while I looked for more lucrative opportunities. It was also a steady freelance gig that I could quit at any time without repercussions.

Cutting expenses

Like most people faced with a major cut in pay, my wife and I started to cut expenses. We dropped our premium cable package. We minimized our mobile phone plan. We deferred my student loans. We went out less and shopped much more carefully. Some expenses just naturally faded away. I was no longer commuting 130 miles round trip to work and eating out with my co-workers. My wife and I also went down to one car. That last expense cut wasn’t entirely voluntary; our minivan caught on fire.

Using my social network

Once I had some money coming in, I concentrated on improving my presence on the web. I upgraded my online portfolio site. I updated my resume on sites such as Monster, Dice and LinkedIn. I let my friends on FaceBook know I was looking for work. I also had lunch with friends and former colleagues, some of whom were also out of work.

Because I did this, I got a few leads. One of these was at a company I had interviewed with before. The interviews had gone well, but they had been unable to offer me a full-time position due to budget cuts. I contacted them and let them know I was available as a freelancer.  They had a project for me and we started working together. One project led to another and I maintained them as a steady source of income for almost six months.

Expanding my base

I have yet to find another client that provides me with the steady work of the first big client, but nine months after losing my regular job, I have a number of smaller clients that are keeping me afloat. In many ways I prefer these smaller clients, because they provide more variety and stability than focusing on one big client for all of my income. Concentrating on one big client is almost the same as having a regular job. You become reliant, and that is dangerous. My one big client knows I’m there if they need me again, and I stay in contact.

Moving on

My goal now is steady expansion. Because I also have my blog, I am not entirely reliant on freelancing for my income, but I am entirely self-employed. My wife and I are able to pay our bills, but I want to do more than just get by and stay afloat. We’re a two car family again, but we are still shopping carefully and avoiding major purchases that we would love to make. My wife will graduate in another two months and probably return to her old employer. This will ease some burdens, but it also means that student loans will once again be in the picture. I have my own number in mind for how much I need to make, and I will keep pushing until I reach that number.

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Decide on your key job markets. Identify the location, career field, company type, special needs such as day care or telecommuting, and the ideal job description. Decide up front if you are willing to relocate and where you would be willing to relocate to. Figure out what you want. You can’t get what you want if you don’t know what you want.

Search online

Make use of online job and search and career planning sites such as:

• Indeed.com
• Monster.com
• Careerbuilder.com
• Linkedin.com
• Local newspapers and job services

Track everything

Tack all of your key information such as resume submissions, job contacts, recruiters, interviews and results. You should start each day (or end each night) by reviewing and filling your schedule with tasks to accomplish in your job search.

Find outside assistance

You might want to talk to a professional career planner or career counselor. You may also want to hire a professional to design your resume.

Join groups and expand your contacts

Sit in with other job seekers and discuss employment possibilities. It can be good to get involved with other job seekers just to realize you are not alone and build a support network. You may also want to volunteer in your community and look for ways to keep your skills sharp by working with others.

Make phone calls

One of the keys to expanding a job search is direct contact. Call the people who might be able to get you a job. Contact people in your industry and let them know you are looking. Emailed resumes are a good tool, but a direct call is the fastest way to determine a company’s interest. It is a lot harder to ignore someone on the phone than a random email.



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Determine what your boundaries are

Most people never proactively think about the behaviors and events that test their boundaries. Take the time to evaluate, in writing, what you believe your personal boundaries are or at least should be. To put it simply, decide what bothers you. Boundaries may be based on such things as physical contact, emotional abuse, improper requests, time wasting, inappropriate information, or abuse of position.

Determine how well you have been enforcing your boundaries

Once you have figured out what your boundaries are, evaluate how well you have been enforcing those boundaries. You probably are better at enforcing some boundaries than others. Figure out which ones need the most work. Think of actions you can take to improve the situation.

Figure out who your main violators are

Make a list of the people in your life that you feel violate your boundaries. In many cases this will be specific people. In other cases it will be classes of people such as clients or editors. Figure out where the violations are coming from.

You must change your own actions

Protecting personal boundaries is your own responsibility and comes from your own actions. When someone attempts to violate your boundaries, you need to be the one to tell that person or show that person that you will not tolerate their behavior. This means getting used to saying the word no. It also means following through on any statements you make. Often, someone who is used to violating your boundaries will be reluctant to change their behavior. They may try to escalate or they may try to test you in other ways. It is up to you to stand firm.

Boundary setting statements

Some things you can say when you set boundaries:

• No
• No, thank you
• I can’t do that
• That is inappropriate behavior
• I will not be treated that way
• I will not be spoken to that way
• I am not responsible for your issue
• I don’t have time in my schedule to do that
• I am not the proper person to come to with this problem
• We need to stick to our original agreement

Other ways to set boundaries

Sometimes a statement will not do the trick. Direct confrontation is a proactive way to solve the problem, but it is not always the best answer. Some other things you can do to set boundaries are:

• Change your location. This can be as major as moving to a new office, or as minor as walking away.
• Become unavailable. Don’t answer the phone or check email when you are working on something important. Limit the opportunities for people to contact you.
• Delegate. Suggest that another person is better for the task.
• Use silence. This works very well on the phone and it works well in person if you are good at maintaining eye contact. When an inappropriate request comes, don’t say anything. Let the other person realize that they have made an error and in many cases they will change the situation on their own. If they don’t, now is the time for a simple no.

An immediate response is best

The sooner you set a boundary, the easier it will be to enforce. Sometimes, you will want to set boundaries in advance, such as informing people what hours are appropriate for contact or writing down a clear definition of the work to be performed.

Cutting off contact

As I said previously, some people will not respond well to the boundaries you set, especially if it is a new boundary or one that they are used to violating. Most people will adjust to boundaries quickly, but sometimes people simply won’t stop. The best thing to do with these people is to cut off contact. Stop talking to them. Stop responding to their requests. Drop them as a client. If it is an employer or co-worker, you may need to get human resources involved or even find a new job. These are difficult choices, but sometimes uncertainty is better than continuing in an unhappy situation.

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The first skill a technical writer should have, of course, is writing. You should be able to write in a clear, concise manner. Technical writing is not poetry or prose. Depending on where you work, you may or may not be able to add some stylistic flair. Either way, your job is to clearly tell your audience exactly what they need to know, and everything they need to know.

The second skill you should have is knowledge of a technical subject. My emphasis has always been in the field of computers, which is probably the largest segment of the technical writing market. Your knowledge can be in many other areas, however, such as science, medicine, engineering, mechanics, or law.

No matter what your area of knowledge, you will need computer skills, especially desktop publishing skills. At minimum, you should know the Microsoft Office suite of applications, especially Microsoft Word. Beyond Office, there is Adobe FrameMaker, which is used in many technical-writing environments. Other publishing packages such as PageMaker, Quark Express, and Interleaf can also be useful. In addition, online documentation tools such as RoboHelp, Doc-to-Help and Lotus Notes are great applications to have on your resume, as are HTML and other Internet skills.

In addition, you should try to develop interviewing skills, because you will probably find yourself interviewing technical people to get the information you need for your documents. Often, they will have no idea how to tell you what you need to know, so it is up to you to figure out how to draw the information out of them.

How do I become a technical writer?

This is my most frequently asked question, and a difficult one to answer. I can only tell you how I got into it. I have spent my entire adult life (and a good deal of my youth) as a writer of some form or another. When I entered college, I became first a reporter for and eventually the editor of my college newspaper. It was exciting, interesting, and very stressful. When I chose a major in college, I finally settled on creative writing, with a minor in English. I took very few technical courses in college and I have never taken a course in technical writing.

What I did do was work with computers, constantly. I got my first computer when I was 13 years old and I have never been without one since. In high school and at the beginning of college, I took some programming classes, but only about three of them. The rest of my computer skills I acquired either at home or on the job. When I transferred from my community college to the University of Arizona, I got a job in their computer department in the ‘Courseware Library for Instructional Computing’. There, I was exposed to just about every micro platform available at the time (IBM, Apple/Macintosh, Next, Commodore) and hundreds of software programs. I enjoyed it and I eventually began to teach seminars in Macintosh computing to the faculty and staff. While doing so, I wrote some short manuals and performed other various desktop publishing functions. After college, I had a series of jobs, all of them either computer, publishing, or writing related, until I eventually found myself out of work and needing a career path. I had done some technical writing as part of my past jobs, and I decided that I should dedicate my efforts towards building a career there.

Despite being broke, I managed to acquire my own copy of FrameMaker, and train myself on the package, adding that to my skills in PageMaker. I also taught myself HTML programming and learned to read C and other languages that I had not visited in many years. I sent out over 300 resumes and refused to settle for less than what I wanted. I used up all of my unemployment and dug myself deeply into debt.

Then, I received two job offers. The first one was to work as an Internet content developer for my local newspaper. It paid eight dollars an hour for 30 hours a week of work. I was willing to take it, and would have, but right as I was about to I got a call from a contract agency I had sent my resume to. Another local company was looking for a technical writer for a six-month contract. It paid $20.00 an hour, but much of that got sucked up when I opted for salary and benefits such as medical and dental insurance, holidays, sick days and vacation days. In the end, I started at $29,000 a year and after 6 months I renegotiated to $35,000. As my experience has grown, so has my pay.

What should I take in college?

As an undergraduate, I focused on creative writing and English. If I had gone to college with the goal of being a technical writer, I would still have majored in English or Creative Writing, but I would have minored in a technical subject such as computers or one of the sciences. For some, engineering may be a better choice than science. Even if you are a college graduate, you should consider supplementing your education. An associates degree in computers or another technical subject will prove you have learned the basics.

For graduate studies, more and more colleges are offering Technical Writing or Professional communications degrees. I recently went back to school to get a degree in professional communications.

I’m just out of college, and I want to be a technical writer, but I have no experience, how do I get my first job?

The first technical writing job is difficult to get, especially if you were a writing major and did not major (or even minor) in a technical subject. The first thing you need to do is prove you can write. This involves creating a sample of your work, which is not easy to do without having a specific project. What many people do is try to find a short, badly written manual (There are thousands) and re-write it. The other approach is to write a manual about something you know. The key is to have proof you can do the work.

Do I need a sample?

Yes. Prospective employers often ask for a sample of your technical writing. This can be a problem because these same employers are likely to tell you that what you write for them is confidential. For this reason, I use a ‘fictionalized’ sample. It is based on a short manual I wrote for one company, but I have gone out of my way to change any company-specific information. This was not fun, but it was the best compromise I could come up with. My sample is about 15 pages long. I keep it this short because the employers often want to keep it or review it, and they are not that cheap to reproduce, especially because I have my sample vellum bound with a transparent plastic cover. I also include an explanation of what publishing package I used and what the requirements and restrictions of the project were.

What is the best way to look for a job?

The Internet is a great way to look for work, and even better if you are willing to move around. I especially recommend indeed.com, which searches severl employment sites at once. I also try to hit all the local technical employment agencies. The easy way to do this is check the Sunday paper of the town you are interested in and look in the computer or technical employment sections. Look for agencies advertising several jobs and get either their fax numbers or e-mail addresses. They do not have to be advertising technical writing jobs. If they place technical jobs, then it is worth the time to get your resume and cover letter to them.

There has also been a growth in resume distribution services. These companies claim to send your resume to thousands of recruiters. I haven’t tried this approach, but if you are interested try: EmailMyResume.com, ResumeZapper.com, and ResumeXposure.com.

What should my resume look like?

Emphasize your technical skills. If you know a software package or computer platform or if you have a scientific background, make sure you supply details. I am a strong believer that good writing skills are far more important than knowledge of a specific subject or program, but the reality out there is that if you know the programs or subjects they’re looking for, then you have the distinct edge in getting the job. Writing skill is far down the list of what they take into account. I have gotten two jobs without even providing a sample of my writing. If you would like to have a professional work on your resume, try: Employment911.com or A and A Resume.

What kind of cover letter should I use?

If you are contacting an agent and not responding to a specific job request, then simply indicate a few basics about yourself. indicate you consider to be your strongest and most relevant skills. Don’t make it long and don’t go out of your way to provide details. If they want to know more, they will ask. Keep it short and simple.

On the other hand, if you are responding to a specific job description, especially if you are responding directly to the employer, then a careful cover letter should be written. Analyze the job description, and in your cover letter state specifically how you qualify for as much of that description as possible. Make them believe that you are exactly what they are looking for. Paraphrase their description as much as possible.

What should I ask for in negotiations?

Negotiations are a difficult process. Most agencies work on the “What pay range are you looking for?” system. This is a tricky system, but one that can be beaten. The key is to ask for more than you expect to get. Do this every time, and by at lease five dollars an hour. I give this advice for an important reason. If you are dealing with an agency and you under-price yourself, you are at their mercy. They will either give you what you ask for, or whatever the minimum in their range is. That is it. End of story.

However, if you ask for more than what their range is, they will then proceed to tell you what the range is. Remember, you aren’t dealing with the employer, you are dealing with the agent, and they know what the job will be bid at. When they tell you your rate is too high, ask what the range is and tell them that whatever the high number is will be good enough. It is possible to price yourself out of a job, but frankly, I’m willing to accept that risk. If you aren’t, then follow your own instincts.

If you are dealing directly with an employer, negotiations are more difficult. The key here is to wait until they are ready to extend an offer. If they ask early on what you want, tell them that you will be happy to listen to whatever their offer is, once they have one to make. If they get adamant about it, then you’ll have to name your figure and take your chances. Again, I recommend starting on the high side, but it depends on your instincts and whether you are willing to risk not getting the job in order to get what you want. I have been lucky enough to be pursued by more than one company at a time, and I have been willing to play the two off each other in order to get what I wanted. There is also a big advantage to already having a job when you look for your next job. You have the luxury of saying no.

The one most annoying question an employer can ask me is my past salary history. This has happened a few times, and I have refused to tell them on some occasions and I have told them on others. In both situations, I never got the job, so I can’t say which practice works best. I always take the question as a bad sign, however. Any company interested in this is not likely to treat their employees well, in my opinion.

What is a good technical writing rate?

There is, of course, no clear-cut answer to this. Rates vary according to geography, experience, benefits, and the current job market. As I write this, the market has been slow for a three years but is now starting to pick up. There are still more writers than jobs, but the numbers are evening out.

If money is a prime concern, then you need to be in a major market. I am currently working in Phoenix. Phoenix is a good market because there are several major technology firms (Motorola, Intel, AT&T, American Express, etc.) and there are quite a few smaller companies that employ technical writers. California in general and the San Francisco Bay area (also known as Silicon Valley) specifically are the largest markets, though they have also been the hardest hit by the slowdown in the technical industries. Dallas, Denver, New York, Atlanta, North Carolina and Washington State are also good markets. In those places, contract technical writers commonly make from $15-60 an hour. Salaried employment ranges from $30,000-90,000 a year. There have been more jobs in the lower part of this range during the slump, but compensation is also picking up.

Is it better to take a permanent job or a contract?

This depends on the job, of course. I originally chose to go the contract route because I knew that with a couple more years of experience under my belt, I would be able to command much more money than I would when I began, far more than I would be able to count on through raises. I also had no family to support, so I had a certain freedom to move around and to take risks. I did take a permanent position once, but permanence in this industry is an illusion. I have continued to take contract work and I prefer it.

If you do contract, you will find that you are generally treated differently from regular employees. This will vary widely from company to company, but you may or may not find yourself with a little less respect and acceptance, especially as a technical writer. You are disposable. Also, you will be expected to do your own training. Rarely will companies finance training for contractors.

On the up side, you generally attend fewer meetings and deal with less company politics. Also, I have always tried to get my training on the job. Moving from company to company has given me the opportunity to learn a variety of applications that I would be ignorant of if I had only been at a single company all this time.

To me the key difference between contracting and regular employment is one of attitude toward the company. When I am contracting I consider the company to be a client. I probably work harder to give them what they want, but I have less personal interest in the outcome. Even if I feel the project is flawed, I do what they ask because they are a client and that is my responsibility to them. As an employee, I get much more caught up in the reasons for projects. I am more likely to object to a course of action I don’t feel helps me or the company because I feel it is our mutual responsibility to succeed. I am more invested in the outcome and less concerned with pleasing the company. This may be different for other people, but I think it accurately reflects my past attitudes.

Why are there more contract/consultant jobs then there are permanent jobs?

The hard fact is that most companies do not value technical writing. They bring in writers to fill a specific need, often because they have been required to provide documentation for a project. Many companies bring writers in at the end of a project to document what has already been created rather than include writers in the full product cycle.

Why don’t more companies value technical writing?

Much more emphasis is put on the programming side of products than on usability and documentation because these are viewed as secondary issues. I strongly feel this has helped lead the technical industry into its current down cycle.

Technical writers are viewed as a luxury. As valuable as I feel my skills are, and can be to a company, the company can still function without me. If the programs or systems are undocumented, or if they are poorly documented by programmers or analysts, it will not damage the company as obviously as if the program fails to get developed. I happen to feel that a company that spends money on good technical writers will get a very high return for its investment, in more satisfied customers, smoother processes and greater institutional memory. I believe that dollar-wise this can make money for the company, but those are categories that are difficult to measure and often hard for management to comprehend.

Also, some companies do not understand what a technical writer does. Some consider writers to be glorified secretaries, and do such things as give them notes to type up or even have them take minutes at meetings. Part of the problem is that secretaries and administrative assistants have also become a thinning breed, and management (not the upper management, who have secretaries, but the lower management and team members) are desperate for anyone who can make a document look good. I once found myself at a company that constantly asked me to attend meetings simply to record the minutes. I comforted myself with the fact that I was paid $36 an hour to do it, but I also started looking for my next job,

What types of documents do technical writers create?

The range of writing a technical writer performs varies widely. Much is dependent on the technical specialty of the writer and of the needs of the company. You may find yourself a part of one large project, or overseeing dozens of smaller projects. You might write manuals, articles, proposals, white papers, product descriptions or any of a hundred other types of documents.

My specialty is writing manuals, especially user manuals and programmer manuals for specific software applications. This is the technical writing I enjoy most, because for me it involves solving problems and figuring out puzzles. To write a user manual, I need to think like the people using the program and try to tell them what they need to know, rather than what I would need to know or what the programmer would need to know. For me, this is a lot of fun and very fulfilling.

There are dozens of different types of writing that come under the banner of technical writing, however. Many people document processes. Processes can be just about any system by which something gets done. For example, in order for a company to generate a payroll, certain actions must be taken, such as logging hours and generating checks. All of those steps are part of a process, and intelligent companies document those processes so that, if an employee leaves or a system goes down, they have something to consult in order to get themselves on track. One name for this type of document is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).

Another type of documentation is SLA (Service Level Agreement). The SLA describes exactly what a provider (company or department) will do for a customer (another company, another department, or an individual). These can be highly technical documents or busywork, depending on the service and the company.

Proposals, often written in response to an RFP (Request For Proposal) document are much like SLAs. They describe what work will be done, but they require more writing finesse because they are also pitching the service. The company is proposing to sell a service. I have written several proposals, and depending on the request and the company, they can be quite interesting or more busywork.

These are just a few examples of the types of work technical writers perform.

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Option Paralysis

The saying goes, you can’t get what you want if you don’t know what you want. That is a problem that I’ve been struggling with for quite some time. I have spent the past several years settling for what I can stand, rather than what I truly enjoy. In a way, I have been challenging to see just how much I can put up with and still function. I would commute for two hours a day to work for eight hours a day and then come home and write / work on my blog for another three to four hours a day.  Last winter, after two years of keeping up this grueling schedule, I gave up on my blogging. This is unfortunate because writing this blog was by far the most enjoyable of the tasks that were in front of me.

I have been a technical writer for fifteen years. On my best days, I am great at this job. When the challenge is right and my interest is peaked, I can work magic. Unfortunately, the opportunity to work magic comes up only on occasion. Last summer and fall was one of those times. I was working with a talented and energetic partner, and we did some great work. For a period of over three months, I actually looked forward to getting up in the morning and doing what I was good at. Eventually though, the situation changed and I went back to forcing myself to go to work every day. In June though, I got lucky. I lost my job.

I had lost a lucrative job and all of the security that comes with it. The job market was terrible so my prospects seemed weak. I had mortgage payments, car payments, student loan payments, utilities and a grocery bill to worry about. On occasion, I was scared out of my skull. Most of the time, however, I was happy. I had lost a job, but I had gained ten to eleven hours of my day. My stress level dropped. I stopped having to drink Coffee and Monster energy drinks just to get through the day.

I even managed to keep making money. That was the strangest part of all. The Internet took a shine to me. I found that magic money making formula that Tim Ferris and all of those ads on Facebook claim to have. I figured it out myself though, and unlike them I’m not telling anyone what it is. My site has never been about getting rich on the Internet and it never will be. Sorry.

The upshot of all this is that I have freedom for the first time in a long time. I can do what I want to do. I can write what I want to write. I can pick any direction I please. This has brought on a case of option paralysis. Do I return to blogging? Do I look for that “perfect” technical writing job? Do I pick a new career path?

I am free. Now what?

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I’ll be honest. I’ve had better summers. The season started with me getting fired. The offense was that I allowed a relatively minor company document to get indexed by Google. I had used one of my own ftp sites to send the file home, and I had forgotten to remove the document. Google found it, information security found it on Google, and I found myself out of a job. In years past, such an infraction would have gotten me a warning at best, but times have changed. My termination was soon followed by a substantial round of layoffs at the company. Virtually every benefit, from medical to profit sharing to the 401k has either been eliminated or substantially reduced. I fully expect that there will be more layoffs. The company has some major problems and it may or may not survive

I went into the house to fill up a pail of water. Unfortunately I didn’t have a pail, so I used a two-liter soda bottle. The water pressure was particularly bad the day. In the summer, in the desert, the water pressure at two in the afternoon is light at best. Before I even finished filling the bottle, the tire exploded. I ran out and splashed water on the fire, but it was too late for minor measures. My neighbor had his hose in the front yard, so I ran and grabbed it. The water was barely strong enough to reach the fire, which was making its way toward the gas tank. I focused the water on that spot.

Getting fired had not been in my plans. In fact, I had been making a special effort at to work to eliminate any possible issues. In a casual work environment, I had begun wearing long sleeves and ties. I had eliminated every remotely cynical decoration and covered my cubical with inspirational slogans and the company’s “customer covenant”. I had tried to make myself fireproof, but there’s always something out there that can get you. For me it had been a nightmare project four months earlier. We’d been given an outrageous deadline to put out a product that was clearly not ready. We’d been told to “think outside the box” and do what it takes to succeed. I was operating on almost no sleep and battling a cold that had dragged on for months. Somewhere in all that chaos, I started sending files back and forth from home so I could keep working. This was not an approved activity, and even though I had my manager’s consent, I knew it was a risk. That was why I stopped after the company came to the sad realization that its dream product was a polished turd and gave up. Unfortunately, I forgot about the file, even as Google was discovering it. Four months later, it exploded in my face.

An explosion was exactly what I was trying to avoid with the van. Unfortunately, as even I know, water is not the most effective way to put out a fire, especially when oil and gasoline are involved. In this case, however, I got lucky. Two neighbors appeared, each with their own fire extinguisher. They didn’t quite manage to put the fire out with them, but they got it away from the gas tank and eventually we managed to put the rest of the fire out with the hose. By the time the fire truck arrived, we were already cleaning up the mess and pondering the damage. We drank some ice water together and then I went to call my insurance company. Eventually I collapsed on the couch and spent the rest of the night coughing up the remains of smoke and fire-retardant powder.

When you get fired, you have to combat a lot of issues at once. You are depressed that you failed. You are angry that you were rejected. You are worried about your finances and your reputation. You have to contend with everyone, EVERYONE, that you know asking you what you are going to do next. You question your actions and try to figure out what you could have or should have done differently. I updated my resume on all the job boards. I bought a new set of business cards. I contacted old friends. I created a new portfolio site.  I found ways to dramatically increase my Internet income. My wife and I cut out all of our unnecessary expenses.

The van had caught fire as I was arriving home from an interview. My portfolio, my friends, even my business card had come together to bring me a new opportunity. A few days later I got the call. We want you. I am an independent again. I am a freelancer for hire, and I have my first contract. Life is good… but I need a new car.

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One of the great things about blogging is that, for the most part, there is little lead time. You write something and then you publish it. If you’re lucky, you get feedback and if it is particularly good you get repeat visitors. You might write ahead, gathering several days or even weeks worth of posts in advance, but for the most part you are writing as you go.

In the world of technical writing, you are often assigned to projects that last for months or even years, and in many cases the material you write today may not be read for a long time. Occasionally, it won’t get read at all, at least not by the people you intended it for. This has been a fairly regular occurrence in my career. My first major project lasted a year. At the end of that year, the company was part of a merger and moved to the other company’s software platform, negating all of my work.

Later on in my career, I documented what was expected to be a major product for a very large hardware/software company.  Because of the lead time for localization, I had to complete the documentation two months before the product was to be released. I had just finished up and sent off my work to the translators when word came down that the project was being scrapped due to a poor business case. Poor business case was code for, “our competitors decided to include this tool for free in their new operating system”.

My most recent bout of deadprojectitis hasn’t been quite as severe. The product I have been working on for the past two years was released and most of my documentation is at least available to customers. Nonetheless, the product is on its way out. It won’t be gone today or tomorrow, but it is being replaced by something newer and shinier and almost certainly better. The change came suddenly. Just a month ago, it looked like the product would be getting a major overhaul that would have me up to my armpits in documentation for the next six months, but things change.

In all of these cases, far more than my own efforts were negated. There were programmers, engineers, project managers, product managers, business analysts and a host of other people who had their efforts negated. These things happen. Companies change direction, market forces change people’s needs, competitors beat you. This is the world of business and it is frustrating. In some cases people don’t just see their hard work pushed aside, they actually lose their jobs. There isn’t always another project waiting around the corner. These are the realities of the business world. In the current economy, it is something you’ll see more and more of. Companies will be cutting expenses, and often that comes in the area of new development, or the elimination of existing products.

There is no magic solution to this problem. It helps if you can be assigned to more than one project, so that you aren’t defined by a single product, but those choices aren’t always your to make. This is the business world. When things do wrong you pick yourself back up, dust yourself off and get back in the game.

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The problem with enthusiasm is that, unless it just comes naturally to you, it will be hard to maintain in a corporate environment. Sitting in a cubicle all day is torturous on a number of levels. You cannot control the look (blue/gray accented by fluorescent white) or the noise (every conversation you never wanted to hear). You will be asked to “get on board” a number of flawed initiatives that will seem doomed to failure to you. At times you will be given a list of values/covenants that you are expected to believe in wholeheartedly and speak about enthusiastically. These run along the lines of:

• We will make our customers love us.
• We will obliterate our competitors.
• We will always succeed. Failure is not an option.
• We will fix every issue the day that it occurs.
• We will give 100% effort at all times.

Some of these will seem possible, and others will seem silly, and a few won’t make any sense at all no matter how many times you read them. In most cases, there will be about twenty of them, and some will seem to completely contradict others. You will be tempted to point this out. Don’t bother. Nobody wants to hear that the values are silly, contradictory or impossible. The important thing is that you will need to embrace all of these things enthusiastically, no matter how much you want to run from the room screaming.

Here are the rules for faking enthusiasm:

First, do no harm

Your natural instinct when confronted with something you believe to be massively, painfully stupid is to say so. That is the instinct you must crush inside of you. When confronted with such a situation, talk yourself out of being critical. Critical thinking will only get you in trouble. Ask yourself, “How would someone who can’t see how stupid this is respond?”

Put the corporate values up on the wall of your cube

Nothing says “I Believe!” like having the values up on your wall. Try to find a place where everyone can see them but you. Actually looking at them every day could prove to be too painful to bear.

Learn to speak their language

When a corporation asks for enthusiasm, they are generally willing to accept any sign of it that they see. Remember that the same people who will be judging your enthusiasm are the ones who made up the empty platitudes that they expect you to get enthusiastic about. These are not deep thinkers. Pick a few phrases that you think you can deliver without wincing (a sure sign of a lack of enthusiasm) and have them ready to deliver. You don’t want to have to think about this. Stopping to think is also a sign of a lack of enthusiasm. Here are some good stock phrases:

• That’s Fantastic!
• This is what I’ve been waiting for!
• Sounds good to me!
• I’ll put these on my wall!
• Words to live by!

Work on your tone of voice

One of the biggest challenges of faking enthusiasm is to keep your voice from betraying you. If you undersell it you will seem sarcastic and if you oversell  it you will seem either sarcastic or just plain insane. You want just a hint of enthusiasm in your voice. A truly enthusiastic person can deliver more, but you want to stay on the safe side. Sell it, but just a little. You should probably practice in front of a mirror. Until you get it right, stick to being enthusiastic via email.

Come up with some tips

Sometimes you can get away with just saying a stock phrase, but at other times you will be asked to “implement” the platitude. That means you will have to come up with something you can do to carry out the platitude. Look for very small ways in which these things can be implemented, preferably by doing things that you already do or that cannot be verified. Be prepared for your ideas to be shot down. If they are, nod. Nodding is a great way to make no comment while appearing enthusiastic and agreeable.

Platitude: We will make our customers love us.
Response: We should spend more time listening to our customers!

Platitude: We will obliterate our competitors
Response: We should start a United Way campaign!

Platitude: We will always succeed. Failure is not a possibility
Response: We should form collaborative teams!

Platitude: We will fix every issue the day that it occurs
Response: We should make sure to act on every item in our inbox every day!

Platitude: We will give 100% effort at all times
Response: We should all make a to do list!

Move on

Most of these values statements just get ignored after a while. The important thing is to show enthusiasm every time they come up, then go back to doing your job once the furor dies down. Be prepared though. Another list will be in its way soon enough.

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