By Kelly Smith | Member
I’ve always enjoyed writing, but never thought I could make a living at it until I began working as a consultant and computer programmer. There was so much to document! Not just the databases and code, but how-to guides and user manuals to make my life (and the lives of my users and coworkers on the software support team) easier. Once I started taking on these tasks, my managers began to notice and ask me to create other documents—statements of work, training materials, diagrams, and presentations.
The knowledge I gained from documenting our processes led to a spot on the quality assurance and process improvement teams, where I was in charge of writing and updating policies and procedures and overseeing the documentation of our programmers. I still did a lot of other work—audits, reporting, business analysis—and a lot of administrative tasks, but every chance I got, I wrote.
I wrote nonfiction for work and fiction for pleasure. I published two nonfiction books and worked as a paid blogger and freelance magazine writer. Eventually, I moved to Colorado to work as senior editor for a national quilting magazine, then moved into a contract job for the federal government.
But there was too much uncertainty in contracting—about the next contract, or whether the government would shut down again and would we be paid this time? So when I started looking for a new job, I knew I wanted to be a direct employee, and I wanted writing to be my primary focus.
After dozens of applications and many interviews, I landed my present job where I finally have “writer” in my title and spend most of the day writing and editing. I work in the IT department of a large manufacturing company. I help the technical staff write disaster recovery documents, but I also create software user guides for groups ranging from sales people to mechanics.
In addition to my love of explaining things, I like to be involved where I work. I itched for additional challenges. Since I was in a new job in a new city, I joined several employee committees so I could meet people. When they decided to create an employee art committee, I volunteered to be chairperson. This involves a fair bit of boring administration, but it also allows me to plan cool art displays in our café, create and maintain a website, and deal with all sorts of interesting, talented artists.
Another perk of my new job was the ability to join STC and attend my first Summit in 2015. I’ve already learned a lot from STC’s webinars, conference sessions, and Intercom. I feel like a newbie again, but in a good way. In January 2016, I started a Master’s of science in technical communication management to build on my experience. If we ever have a tech comm team larger than one, I’d like to lead it.
The best part of being a technical communicator though, is still the reason I started—to explain things and to make life easier for my users.
