Feline Musings

Social media is a powerhouse of ever flowing information, tinged with experiences and opinions of many users, across diverse stages of learning, maturity and understanding. A decade ago, when technical writing was struggling to find a stronghold in the Indian IT industry, the greatest impetus came from the use of online groups and mailing lists. Islands of information and individual aspirants conjoined at an online abode, where they shared details of jobs, tools, technical trainings, and challenges. In the absence of established courses and training institutes, most technical writers were learning the intricacies of the usage of authoring tools through chats, forums, and blogs. The online availability of industry-wide authoring standards and trends has helped technical writers to think and write from the perspective of global users, and also come of age, in terms of international competition.

The 20th century is the age of structured authoring and optimizing information reuse. Interactive media, content and learning management systems, authoring tools, and the need for diverse and multi-output documentation to support the upsurge in application development, as well in consumer-focused mechanizations, have given end-user based technical documentation a professional status.

The planning, collaborating and analyzing responsibilities provide on-the-job training for a documentation manager’s role. It opens one’s perspective to challenges of good documentation, the need and pressure of working with various stakeholders within specified deadlines, collating and analyzing data to generate appropriate metrics, and most importantly, accountability for the quality of a deliverable.

I accept with a gourmet’s delight the weird menu that is served day in and day out in my office cafetaria, even if it means chewing on the little stone in my rice, or having the lentil salad that reeks, or the custard that is yellow colored water.

Why arent men questioned about their family obligations, or the number of depedants in their household, and then a formula drawn up to calculate how many leaves he will be taking, or how much he would be able to manage home-office stress!

Working in the IT industry is always fraught with the danger that there may be some new technology, new tool, and new terminology just around the corner, and you are the only one who is living in the “Dark Ages” and not aware of the latest hum-word!  Well, I was struck with this “I-am-outdated” phobia [...]

An interesting article on www.rediff.com Get Ahead section caught my eye – Want a work-from-home job? As a working woman I have always been interested in keeping my eye open for opportunities that can help me earn my monthly visit to the beauty-parlor, and pay for my massive shoe-purchase fetish, even when I am on [...]

It was July and the night was stormy. I had been immensely delayed in office and by the time I could wind up my work, it was nearly 10:30 PM. I did not want to wait for the office cab, which would take another half an hour to pick me up. I saw a lone [...]

She told me it was cold when she was leaving for her house after cooking dinner at my neighbor’s house. I asked her what time does she normally finish her work everyday. She said 9:30 PM.
“So you cook again when you go home!”
“Not exactly. I only make the chapattis or heat up the vegetable/curry!”
“Do [...]

 They asked me how much I earn. I shrugged the question aside without mentioning a numeric figure. Their curiosity not satiated, they turned towards my husband and inquired about our salaries. My husband also refused to quote an exact amount. They started guessing and threw in some figures as our combined salaries. No response from [...]

Yes, writers have to sell their skills in IT-organizations – not to get the job, but after they land a job in an IT-organization. While most IT-organizations are realizing the need for hiring skilled writers to handle their technical and organizational documentation, they are not fully aware of the potential of the writers they [...]

I attended an official stress management session by Hans Dholakia (www.hansyoga.com). While it was centered on Yoga and Meditation to beat our daily dose of mental and physical stress, what mainly held my interest in the session was Hans’ reflections on Life. He threw light on many significant aspects of life – karma, astral [...]