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Way back when I was a young lad, a hiring manager found me because I had an English major and hired me to help maintain a manual for a small bank system. I did

Way back when I was a young lad, a hiring manager found me because I had an English major and hired me to help maintain a manual for a small bank system. I did a hell of a job but the job was hell. My manager actually put a co-worker in a choke hold at a customer site while they were transitioning their bank to the system. This was way back when, and I put way to much effort into my work; they were dragged along and the whole thing was thankless. That said, I managed to rewrite 800 pages of small bank management documentation into 600 pages of well-formatted, _readable_ manual. I don't know if it was worth it, I was in Lincoln, NE and I didn't have anything better to do. I dropped the readability statistics from freshman in college to freshman in high-school and I'm sure the customer was more the latter than the former. Not to judge, I never met a customer that wasn't worth helping. Am I especially good at writing? Not in my opinion. You'll quickly find it is a target rich environment. The manual I edited could not resist saying, "Put the applicable value into the blah-blah input". Of course, what other value would you put there? Back then, there were some serious efforts in the field to generate multiple deliverables from a single-source. I have no idea if anyone thinks of that anymore. I've been developing ever since and I haven't worked on a product that even thought they needed a manual. That banking software was written for an IBM mainframe and ran in an emulator so it could work in Windows and it didn't even have the worst user interfaces I've seen since. Maybe this is a career? I dunno, the author of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" was a technical writer, he also spent a stint in a mental institution. Maybe it was the software he was documenting? I can't say. I'd just like to thank the OP for the chance to tell this story.

tomcam 3y ago
> Am I especially good at writing? Not in my opinion. You’re an excellent writer.
- wmidwestranger 3y ago
  Thank you, sir. I'll keep this in mind when I doubt myself. Much appreciated.
- roydivision 3y ago
  Agreed, you craft a good sentence.
greenie_beans 3y ago
> My manager actually put a co-worker in a choke hold at a customer site while they were transitioning their bank to the system. wait what? gotta hear the full story
- wmidwestranger 3y ago
  Yeah, he was their lead of training. He had worked in small to medium banks and then tried to set up a consulting business but that's hard enough without having the temperament that leads to putting a co-worker in a choke hold. I _can_ imagine worst managers but he was pretty tough for me, since I didn't want to waste my time doing poor work when I could be doing good work. So this system was about as user-friendly as you can imagine any 30+ year old bank management software. They would sent a team to on-board new banks. The team would usually have this manager or his subordinate, a networking guy, senior support staff. This manager happened to be very hard of hearing but was unwilling to get a hearing aid or sort that out. So him and the others were out drinking after the previous day was over and he was trying to hit on a lady that clearly wasn't interested but he couldn't hear her clearly nor read her lips well enough to take a clue. The next day, in the bank, the networking guy who had been there forever and was friends with the President said something about how he couldn't take a hint and my manager lost his cool, put him in a headlock in the middle of the bank, and probably came to his senses a few minutes later. He was sent back early and the story returned with the rest of the team. This was a small / medium business and he was relieved of joining the on-boarding crews but kept his job. Lots of mixed feelings about that place. While it paid terribly, it is the only place I've worked in 20 years where there was an honest to god retirement party for one of their QA staff.

tomcam 3y ago

> Am I especially good at writing? Not in my opinion. You’re an excellent writer.

wmidwestranger 3y ago
Thank you, sir. I'll keep this in mind when I doubt myself. Much appreciated.
roydivision 3y ago
Agreed, you craft a good sentence.

greenie_beans 3y ago

> My manager actually put a co-worker in a choke hold at a customer site while they were transitioning their bank to the system. wait what? gotta hear the full story

wmidwestranger 3y ago
Yeah, he was their lead of training. He had worked in small to medium banks and then tried to set up a consulting business but that's hard enough without having the temperament that leads to putting a co-worker in a choke hold. I _can_ imagine worst managers but he was pretty tough for me, since I didn't want to waste my time doing poor work when I could be doing good work. So this system was about as user-friendly as you can imagine any 30+ year old bank management software. They would sent a team to on-board new banks. The team would usually have this manager or his subordinate, a networking guy, senior support staff. This manager happened to be very hard of hearing but was unwilling to get a hearing aid or sort that out. So him and the others were out drinking after the previous day was over and he was trying to hit on a lady that clearly wasn't interested but he couldn't hear her clearly nor read her lips well enough to take a clue. The next day, in the bank, the networking guy who had been there forever and was friends with the President said something about how he couldn't take a hint and my manager lost his cool, put him in a headlock in the middle of the bank, and probably came to his senses a few minutes later. He was sent back early and the story returned with the rest of the team. This was a small / medium business and he was relieved of joining the on-boarding crews but kept his job. Lots of mixed feelings about that place. While it paid terribly, it is the only place I've worked in 20 years where there was an honest to god retirement party for one of their QA staff.