By Ernie Mazzatenta | Fellow
Here’s how I almost got started with my career. Return with me, reader, to the early 1950s … to a journalism classroom at Kent State University in Ohio. I was in my junior year taking a business journalism course. It was the first such course I had ever taken, after a steady diet of courses stressing writing and editing for newspapers.
At that time, like most of my classmates, I was eager to begin writing for a newspaper. I didn’t think a business journalism course was central to my needs. A major course project required us to contact a business publication, request issues, and then write an analytical report on the publication.
Since I was less than excited about this assignment, I decided to look for a publication with a funny title. So did many of my classmates. The one title that appealed most to my perverse sense of humor was The Egg and Poultry Journal. As funny as I thought that was, a like-minded classmate outdid me; he picked The Pit and Quarry Handbook. When we announced these titles, the entire classroom erupted in laughter. After all, we were all looking forward to careers at the New York Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, etc.
I contacted the editor of The Egg and Poultry Journal and, very soon after, received the several issues that I requested. Along with them came a very kind letter. In part, it read, “Thank you for your interest. Would you, by chance, also be interested in working for our publication? We have an opening on our editorial staff. We are looking forward to hearing from you.”
The offer stunned—but mostly amused—me. I took the letter to class and presented it to my professor. He, too, was surprised but, being older and more mature than we were, he was pleased but not amused. As he read the letter aloud, my classmates tried hard to suppress their laughter—but their muffled giggles prevailed.
And that’s how I almost got involved in technical communication. After graduation and military service, I obtained my first full-time job—as a membership promotion writer with The American Ceramic Society Journal. (Ahem, a business/technical publication.)
Now fast forward, friends, and move with me from the early 1950s to the mid-1960s.
After gaining extensive experience on several newspapers and in industrial journalism (as creator and editor of a biweekly employee newspaper), I began looking for something different. My looking took place in the Detroit area, where I was living at that time. I came upon a small classified ad in a local newspaper that caught my attention. It was an ad that the General Motors Research Laboratories had placed for a science writer.
I studied the requirements and said to myself, “I can do this.” So I answered the ad and, just a bit later, I was offered the job. Well, I soon changed my tune from “I can do this,” to “Can I really do this?” It was truly hard work to convert from a general assignment news writer to a science writer. I quickly discovered a big difference: news writing usually focuses upon people whereas research reporting emphasizes process.
Of course, the vocabulary was different, too, and I had to learn the technical terminology of automotive research. My first assignment was to produce a four-page technical account of the research leading to a promising process called “Ferrotest.” This assignment required my interviewing the chief researcher (now known as a subject matter expert) and studying his technical project reports. Unfortunately, he had written very little on the subject. Fortunately, during our several conversations, he was friendly, patient, and a good “translator.” During our interviews, he explained the complexities of the process again … again … and again.
Even so, I wrote countless drafts before the article received okays from (1) my research engineer-friend, (2-3) his supervisor and department head, (4) my Technical Information Department head, and (5) Research Labs management. Understandably, the writing and approval process took several months; finally, “Ferrotest” was published for distribution to top-level GM executives, mid-level managers, and researchers in similar work throughout the corporation.
Looking back on my days as a college j-student and on my first days as a full-time technical communicator, I’ve acquired two insights that I would like to share:
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Be flexible. Be open-minded when that unexpected egg comes rolling your way.
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Be level-headed and unafraid in the face of formidable assignments. Maintain your balance and sense of self-worth. You will prevail—gradually, if not sooner.
Little by little, I found my niche as a science writer and instructor of science writing at the General Motors Research Laboratories. But that’s another story.
