Like a dog returneth to its vomit...

[venta]

A month ago, I wrote here about the demise of the company I'd worked for since leaving university.

I went through the signing-on pantomime, I looked through job adverts. I polished my CV and sent it to people.

Who almost all ignored me.

A couple of weeks back, I agreed to work for a new start-up company. It hadn't an office, or any equipment. I've been working at home for the past ten days or so, and today I went into the hastily-acquired but tiny office space. Which still doesn't have any equipment - like, say, computers - in it. I already know my immediate boss; it's the same guy who was my boss at the previous company. Similarly, the CEO making the introductory speech looked strangely familiar. In fact... all the people piled into the room were ex-colleagues. The office is - with a bit of imagination and a big lever - a stone's throw from our old building.

A handful of people - some management and some engineers - have somehow brought an entire new company into being in slightly under five weeks. It's not a carbon-copy of the old one, though it's working in the same area of technology.

So, the good news: I am employed again, working with people I know and like for a company which sounds exciting. The bad news: I'm back to the grind of two hours' commuting every day. Oh, and I drew the short straw: the stuff I was working on at the old company is not currently required, and our former documentation guy has taken a contract elsewhere. Being literate, pedantic and inclined to whinge about documentation standards I am temporarily seconded to the life of a technical author.

Of the people on the books of my previous employer when the ship went down, fewer than 10% have not elected to climb aboard the new vessel. As yet, I'm unsure whether this demonstrates amazing staff loyaly, or merely highlights what an amazingly slack bunch we were when it came to finding new jobs.

Edit When I posted this, the formatting went all to pot and I had to manually add <p> tags to make it sensible. So apologies if it gets very spacey when whatever glitch it was recovers.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Glad things are working out OK, Liz!

Cathy xxx

[(Anonymous)]

Next year we'll be millionaires.
Aardvark ;)

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

I know who you are....

[venta.livejournal.com]

I don't!

Hagbard ?

[uitlander]

Who says 'Aardvarks' at every opportunity?

Check the housemates...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Seems unlikely... not least because the housemate would post from the same IP address as me, which logs show that comment wasn't :)

('Scuse the poor grammar in that.)

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

Sounds like him

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Well done to you for getting another job so quickly!

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

Starting a company (which you are doing, you're not just working for it) is probably a time to put in all those things you didn't have at the last place. Whatever they were sort them out, because once set 'the way things are done around here' is bloody difficult to change.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

probably a time to put in all those things you didn't have at the last place

Money!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well it does mean we get to reconsider all those iffy design decisions made fifteen years ago :)

[uitlander]

Ah, welcome to a whole new world of pain and misunderstanding. I gather you're just the other side of the railway. There's a walkway through to my place - you're about 5 minutes away. Fancy lunch at some point?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yup, lunch'd be nice. Until the office actually gets kitted up with machines, etc, I'm not exactly sure when I'll be there (my own laptop is elderly and fragile and doesn't travel well). Hopefully by next week I should be up and running properly, so will drop you a line then.

[uitlander.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

We should also talk seriously about doc design and how to keep your doc set low maintenance - this may meaning using one or two tools you've never heard of before. It may not seem that much of a consideration now, but believe me, it will save you a whole world of pain in teh long run.... same as that comment about putting right things you wish you'd done differently 15 years ago.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Obviously I'd appreciate any advice you've got to offer! Sadly, though, it seems that I'm only going to be let loose on external-facing documentation. Internal stuff (written by developers) is out of my remit and (in my opinion) looking like it's going to be done in an even worse way than at the last company.

I'm currently investigating DocBook, which seems like a good plan.

[uitlander.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

Although DocBook has the 'open source' mark of approval, I've never seen it used in industry. It has some nice ideas (I looked into it at your old place as well), but for external facing docs it's probably a poor choice.

Take a look at www.author-it.com, Framemaker and Robohelp - those are all the main industry options beyond Word - the determining factor is really what delivery formats you need to deliver your doc in, and how many parallel formats you need. In a situation where you need more than one delivery format, AuthorIT wins (but it is a devil to configure with hidden traps everywhere. I can install, configure the AIT database, set up templates and internal AIT config and train you how to maintain it and extend it for your company on a consultancy basis if you decide to go down that path - its not trivial, and you will need help to get it up and running).

Give me a call this evening and I'll talk you through the pros and cons of each option.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I should add, though, that I'm keen to receive no training and to make things as simple as possible just to make sure that I'm not seen as a future technical author - I'm out of there and straight back to programming as soon as I can reasonably get away with it. I definitely want as little money/resources as possible invested in me!

[uitlander.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

I understand where you're coming from. But just as with the code the decisions and config for your doc you put in place now will have a major impact on how your docset works in the future, how easy it is to look after and how flexible it it. The key question to get answers for is how many output formats you have to deliver in (PDF, HTML, Word, compiled help [n different formats of that]).

That why we should talk, you'll save yourself a lot of pain in a few months time and the company a fair bit of money in the longer term if I can help you put the most flexible and appropriate doc solution in place up front.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Sorry: to clarify... yes, I'd like to talk to you and will endeavour to find an evening when I'm not dancing ASAP.

[venta.livejournal.com]

noted and deleted :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I am temporarily seconded to the life of a technical author

wah! -- hope it's not for too long. And good luck with everything.

[venta.livejournal.com]

It is alledged to be for about 6 months. Which should be OK, so long as the end is in sight :)

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Sounds like amazing staff loyalty to me and glad that things didn't remain in the wilderness for long at all. I hope the new job is less annoying and more fun than the old one; may you all be paid generously for as long as you like!

"Who almost all ignored me"

[jennyh.livejournal.com]

I don't know who your contact here forwarded your CV to, but I've checked and it never made its way as far as my team. Its a real shame, we've been trying to find people with your skills. If you look again, tell me, I can get it to the right person here immediatly.

Re: "Who almost all ignored me"

[venta.livejournal.com]

I didn't send my CV to you; I was still being undecided about the idea of a move to London, and was looking more locally first. (No, this wasn't what I originally claimed I was going to do - I changed my mind.)

Thanks for looking, though, and sorry to have caused you a wild goose chase.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear it from the side of job, money and work colleagues. And I hope that it works out better this time around.

[naranek.livejournal.com]

'ey up; well done on the new job! what's your company doing?
(he says, mysteriously .. )

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

They're going to design some amazing new computer language and rool the world!

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

Oh no. Hang on.
That didn't work last time, did it?

[venta.livejournal.com]

I had the distressing social dilemma yesterday of not quite knowing to answer "So, what does your comapny do?" when a friendly guy in the shared kitchen asked me.

<thinks>
"Real time embedded OS"... no, wait that's the last one.
"Sits about waiting to get some computers"... no, not tactful.

I haven't learnt the company song yet and thus don't have an answer ready to hand.

[venta.livejournal.com]

The company will (as soon as it's written it) be selling a platform for mobile gaming.

[naranek.livejournal.com]

ooh .. shiny - a (very belated) cheers :-). See you at Whitby?