Documentation Management and Technical Writing Blog by Miriam Lottner

I met a lot of interesting people at Microsoft’s Think Next technology innovation event that I blogged about last week. While I did my share of collecting giveaways and sampling hors d'oeuvres (not sure I agreed with the idea to serve corn on the cob on a fork at a networking event, but I’ll talk about that in another post...), I spent a significant amount of time networking with colleagues and meeting new people.

Perhaps the most interesting conversation I...

Recently, while renegotiatiing a contract, the customer was nickel-and-diming me over the price of one of the writers who had done a miraculous job for them under impossible deadlines. While they were busy negotiating, I had to take the writer off the job for 3 days, and put someone cheaper into the position. Oh, did I mention this was 5 days before the deadline of a 3-month contract?

Yes, that's right. I had to put in someone who didn't know the product, didn't know the people, and was an inferior writer, because they insisted on a lower price – the week of the deadline. Needless to say, by the third day they were begging for the original writer. But guess what? The day after the deadline they were back arguing about the price and number of hours needed for...

Sometimes I wonder if HR decisions are well thought out by business executives before they agree.

The unthinkable happened twice in the last week, so I wanted to highlight this horrible new trend and advise everyone to stop doing it.

If your company needs to hire people at any time in the future, this is NOT the way to work.

The scenario x2:  a company calls Tech-Tav and says they are in need of technical writing services. They describe the position, we agree (in written and executed contract!) to the terms and recommend some well-qualified candidates. The company then conducts a first, second and third round interviews of multiple candidates that include a grueling writing test and a grilling by HR. Job offers to specific candidates are made and start dates...