An Elegant Solution

 Level Four Lockdown: Day Sixty-Seven

Mood: Once again, tired

Part of my day job is dealing with people from all over the place. And I pride myself on being good at this - just as I pride myself at being good at my job. I've been doing what I do for over ten years ago. I have a Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing, a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters of Arts in Writing. Plus over ten years on the job training in the fields of corporate writing, training, e-learning development, process mapping and software documenting. 

I know what I am doing.

This week, I was called out in the company for an inhouse award for doing my job. I get to sit in meetings where I utter the words, "Think of the poor person in India / The Philippines / some call centre out Woop Woop has to use these instructions with some irate customer on the other end of the phone. The person who called me out for the award loves me for this. 

I work in a team who say exactly the same thing. 

I also have a nemesis. This person is from the Compliance Department. 

Anybody who has worked a corporate job in the last ten years will know the pain of the Compliance Department. Telecommunications, Banking and Finance and Energy are all highly regulated areas. These sectors are where I tend to work, and being a document jockey, I find myself having to consult with this rather tedious department, who take red pens to my documents. And I have to go in to bat for the little guy on the end of the phone in the call centre.

So today, one of my documents came back. It's been a rush job, incorporating feedback from all over the company on a compliance ridden issue. I've done my job, working with a Business Analyst, who's just as frazzled with this compliance person. (As are many I work with, but ah well.) The person in question had taken issue with some of my editorial decisions, made for the good of the person having to use them. I'd used their words, I'd kept the flow, I'd tidied up the grammar. All good. Regardless, they were complaining about the way I'd done things. I'd already gone through this with the processes owner, the BA, the head of the department and a few others, explaining my rationale. 

But this person complained. The've been complaining for the last six months. They have a reputation for not being he easiest people on the planet to work with.

After three days of putting up with this, something snapped. 

The email was sent back:

To: Said Person in Compliance

CC: The Others working on this piece of work (Four similarly exasperated souls)

From: The Technical Writer

Dear Person Who Shall Not Be Named.

I think you should find what I have done fits the task.

It does what it needs to do. 

I have just taken your words and put an elegant solution to the words. 

Come back after you've thought about how you would approach your changes if you were sitting in a call centre in Mumbai with English as your second language having to use these documents. 

Cheers,

The Tech Writer

Needless to say, I received a number of direct messages in the following half hour thanking me for putting this person in their place. 

I don't do this very often. I'm a Tech Writer. We're the bottom of the food chain. But it is nice to bite back for a change. 

Today's song: