So what do I do? Technical Writing of course!

People will never understand what Technical Writing is... and what Technical Writers do. The question about what we do, however, is unavoidable. Be it an old college senior you bump into in a party or a bunch of people that come to your place to discuss matrimony...they will ask, "so what do you do?"

With time, I've learnt a few answers that help me. Based on the present and potential understanding level of the person who is asking me this question, I reply in the following ways:

  1. I write computer literature. (To an educated but non-computer-savvy person..may be a little misleading though, as this reminds of Fat books studied in B-Tech classes.)
  2. I am something of a writer. (When you don't feel the compulsion to put in effort, unless asked further)
  3. I am a techno-commercial writer (Usually to females.. makes it sound lot more interesting.. but the compound adjective techno-commercial does convey a lot here... and is more effective than mere "Technical")
  4. Main computer da kamm kardan (To a village person from my native who has been in the UK for a decade but will anyway not make out the difference between any two people sitting in front of computers--be it a Data Entry Operator or a System-level programmer)
  5. Remember the document you were looking for that evening to understand the system better? We write that stuff. (To a developer)
  6. I am a technical writer (only to other technical writers)


Ketan Sevekari said…
Good article....
Very true!
Many people still feel I am working in shifts as a data entry operator in a BPO.
Navdeep said…
Ha Ha Ha...

Good One... For a non-computer person, you always have to say "Computer da kamm hai ji". I would like to share one incident of my friend a website developer.

He asked for a lift and got one in a car. The owner of the car asked "What do you do?" and he said "Computer ka kaam hai mera.". He said "Rozi-Roti theek thaak chal rahi hai, je naa chal rahi hove taan diesel da tempo pa le, uthe vade paise ne".

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