Monday, March 13, 2006

My Boss mentioned that he was on tap to help rewrite the user’s manual for our financial system.

ME: You mean there is a manual?

MB: Yep. But it’s been a long time since there’s been an update. They asked me to help them take a look at fixing it.

I thought for a second and then I (maybe) stupidly said, “You know that I was a tech writer for almost seven years.”

There was the sound of crickets and then I compounded my stupidity, “I wrote user manuals.”

And then I saw the click in his eyes when his brain made the connection.

We got an email with the old document (circa 1991 - your federal tax dollars at work and don’t even get me started on the lack of training on this system, either) and printed the 100+ pages to start a quick review.

The upshot is that it’s definitely got the potential for telecommuting written all over it, so to speak. MB suggested it knowing that there are way too many distractors in the office. And the agency will get a good user manual for a crappy old system (because I’m of the mindset that a user manual should be written by a user; never by the programmer).

The downside is that I might not get the credit for the work that I’ll deserve because MB tends to take credit when it’s due to others.