Lady Hunter
12 pointer
- Jan 12, 2009
- 5,343
Sometimes you just have to walk away. I walked away from two that started out good & then went to hell in a handbasket.
Started the first one as a part time $5/hour technical writer. It was a pretty cool job. I only worked about 20 hours a week & was only dealing with one product. Within 6 months though, the head writer had quit and I was the lead writer on all products & working full time managing another girl they'd hired after me. Still at $5/hour and no benefits. When that girl quit and they hired another under false-pretenses (told her she'd be a lead programmer & then left it to me to explain that she'd NEVER get to program as a writer), that did it for me and I walked away.... And it was a good move - I landed an 18 month contract with IBM after that, coordinating translations between the plant in Lexington and sixteen translations centers worldwide. LOVED that job & hated it when my contract ran out and corporate woudln't let them hire me on full time because I had the "wrong degree." It was probably for the best though because it wasn't long after that they closed the entire division where I would have been.
The other one I walked away from lasted 6 years. Sole technical writer for a small pharmaceutical software company. I wrote everything from newletters to user's guides to quick references to sales brochures. If it was printed from the company, it came from my desk. Challenging but a lot of fun! And the first 5 years or so were great. Good management, good work atmosphere, and good raises (and awesome company parties a couple of times each year). Then a partial owner sold us out to another partial owner... and it went down the tubes. The new parent company replaced the head of software development with a guy who's resume highlight was that he also worked as a paid underwear model. I wish that was a joke but it wasn't. He had no programming experience and was totally CLUELESS. We could all see the products we worked on going downhill but were powerless to stop it with him in charge. Raises kept being put on hold & false promises given. At the same time, I was dealing with daycare issues for my infant & finally I'd had enough... Wrote up my resignation on the spot & handed it to the dimwit as I walked out the door. Wasn't surprised when less than 6 months later, the parent company shut the whole thing down and transferred all of our products to another subsidiary. (Ironically, a couple of years later they tried to resurrect the main product & hired a bunch of us back as independent contractors to develop it under a Windows platform. That was a lot of fun & I made a buttload of money working part time from home while writing documentation and help text for it before corporate changed their mind once again & pulled the plug on the entire project.)
Whatever you do, make sure you can afford it financially. Either have enough saved to tied you thru until you find something better (or at least a better environment) or have something lined up before you go. Also make sure you have some way of obtaining health coverage while you're between jobs. And be aware that, as someone said up above, the grass isn't always greener & snakes don't always show their stripes until it's too late for you to run away. Good luck. Working in a toxic environment is rough.
Started the first one as a part time $5/hour technical writer. It was a pretty cool job. I only worked about 20 hours a week & was only dealing with one product. Within 6 months though, the head writer had quit and I was the lead writer on all products & working full time managing another girl they'd hired after me. Still at $5/hour and no benefits. When that girl quit and they hired another under false-pretenses (told her she'd be a lead programmer & then left it to me to explain that she'd NEVER get to program as a writer), that did it for me and I walked away.... And it was a good move - I landed an 18 month contract with IBM after that, coordinating translations between the plant in Lexington and sixteen translations centers worldwide. LOVED that job & hated it when my contract ran out and corporate woudln't let them hire me on full time because I had the "wrong degree." It was probably for the best though because it wasn't long after that they closed the entire division where I would have been.
The other one I walked away from lasted 6 years. Sole technical writer for a small pharmaceutical software company. I wrote everything from newletters to user's guides to quick references to sales brochures. If it was printed from the company, it came from my desk. Challenging but a lot of fun! And the first 5 years or so were great. Good management, good work atmosphere, and good raises (and awesome company parties a couple of times each year). Then a partial owner sold us out to another partial owner... and it went down the tubes. The new parent company replaced the head of software development with a guy who's resume highlight was that he also worked as a paid underwear model. I wish that was a joke but it wasn't. He had no programming experience and was totally CLUELESS. We could all see the products we worked on going downhill but were powerless to stop it with him in charge. Raises kept being put on hold & false promises given. At the same time, I was dealing with daycare issues for my infant & finally I'd had enough... Wrote up my resignation on the spot & handed it to the dimwit as I walked out the door. Wasn't surprised when less than 6 months later, the parent company shut the whole thing down and transferred all of our products to another subsidiary. (Ironically, a couple of years later they tried to resurrect the main product & hired a bunch of us back as independent contractors to develop it under a Windows platform. That was a lot of fun & I made a buttload of money working part time from home while writing documentation and help text for it before corporate changed their mind once again & pulled the plug on the entire project.)
Whatever you do, make sure you can afford it financially. Either have enough saved to tied you thru until you find something better (or at least a better environment) or have something lined up before you go. Also make sure you have some way of obtaining health coverage while you're between jobs. And be aware that, as someone said up above, the grass isn't always greener & snakes don't always show their stripes until it's too late for you to run away. Good luck. Working in a toxic environment is rough.
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