Although it was a long time ago, I still cherish the memories of my first days as a technical writer.
This post is for entertainment purposes. I will omit everything that might be sensitive information. Regardless, I hope you will get something useful out of it or at the very least enjoy reading it.
Learn, learn, and learn some more
Arriving at the office, I was surrounded by six other people, all starting with me on the same day. Most of these people I still consider my friends. I felt confused and out of place but excited nonetheless. I tend to talk a lot overshare when I'm nervous, and it was no different that day. Luckily, I managed to catch myself when I started talking about some tabletop role-playing stuff. Afterward, I made a conscious effort to shut up and listened to the others.
Everyone was about the same age as me, in their twenties. About half of the group had the distinct look of people who just walked into an amusement park for the first time. Starry-eyed ready to take on the world (one document at a time)!
After signing the contracts and introducing ourselves, we received some basic orientation:
- Work safety
- Escape routes and fire drills
- IT-related information (how to use the equipment we received)
- Work schedule
- Office layout
- History of the company
- Our mission
Afterward, we were sent home, which was a bit disappointing. I just couldn't wait to write something! I know this might sound a bit... I don't know... cringe-worthy? But I was so hyped to create something that people would actually read that I remember calling my dad and talking for 3 hours straight about different documents I wanted to create!
I couldn't sleep that night.
The next day we got to meet the rest of our team (7 veteran technical writers) and our manager. So combined, our team had 15 members. I remember eating kocsonya (a kind of meat jelly with root vegetables), a traditional Hungarian dish for lunch that day, which became a meme instantly, but I didn't care. It was extremely cheap, and I was really poor at the time. Also, it had vegetables, protein, and some carbs, thanks to the bread I served it with.
For the following two weeks, we received training about:
- Cybersecurity
- Some ancient tool most of us would never even use (me included)
- Anti-corruption
- Agile
The agile training really resonated with me. I imagined us becoming an unstoppable team, all having different roles and taking on every challenge that may present itself.
Then something terrible happened that initially seemed like a curse but later became a blessing.
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| Image from Vecteezy |
Missing the most important training
I got sick. It wasn't a run-of-the-mill cold either. I remember thinking in the morning that I was feeling a bit off, but I thought it was just because of the lack of sleep again. We've had a great day ahead of us! Our training got delayed because a senior technical writer who should have been presenting broke their leg, but they have found a replacement. So I packed my things and went to work. By the time I arrived, I felt like I had a slight fever, and my nose felt like an open tap. I went over to my manager to tell her that I wasn't feeling too hot (or was feeling a bit too hot, to be honest), and after measuring my temperature, it turned out I had an extremely high fever (40 °C or 104 F). Luckily, I went home before infecting everyone with whatever I had.
I spent two weeks bedridden afterward.
After two weeks, missing the most important training, I learned that one of our team members had enough (they just couldn't take the amount of information we were receiving in such a short time), and they had to be replaced. We received another person to fill the void in our team.
This is where I caught a lucky break. Getting separate training sessions on my lonesome would have been awkward (also, I'm not 100% certain it would have been worth it for the company), but with the two of us, it was an easy sell.
The most senior of the group, who started on the same day as me but had experience as a technical writer working at another company, held the training. To further improve things, it turned out that person was not only incredibly talented and knowledgeable about everything related to technical writing, but he was also a funny and good person all around.
I think I can name three different points in time when my career was greatly impacted in such a positive way, and that was one of them. I learned about topic-based authoring, DITA, and using a DITA-based CCMS. Even though the rest of the team had two weeks to learn all of this, we caught up in less than two days and then some! I became confident again, and hope of grandeur has rekindled within my heart.
The big trip
After less than a month of training, we were presented with another event. We had to go to Sweden in December for about three weeks to receive additional training from those responsible for the documentation. I was shocked by this. I never expected such a long journey at the very beginning of my career. To be perfectly honest, being poor, I didn't even own a suitcase. My grandmother bought me a secondhand ten-year-old one at a market, which I still use.
Then I had to use most of my first paycheck and the allowance we received for the trip to buy some warm clothes; a pair of shoes, a jacket, and a pair of long johns, to name a few things.
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| Image from Vecteezy |
We traveled to Sweden and the trainings commenced.
It was a magical time. Most people disregard the impact such a trip has on people. We were forced to rely on each other, as we had no one else to turn to in a foreign land. (As ironic as it may sound, we probably developed Stockholm syndrome in Stockholm). We woke up at around 7.00 A.M (which is a bit late for me normally, but the fact that it was ALWAYS dark really messed with my circadian rhythm), had our breakfast together, then attended training from 8.00 A.M till 5.00 P.M. After work, we had dinner together, and spent our time talking in the communal kitchen on the top level of the hotel. The company even rented a small cinema for us and our Swedish colleagues to watch Star Wars: Rogue One together.
We each received a mentor (I never even got to meet mine, as I had so many other tasks already) to ease the transition and receive personalized training for the tasks we would be handling. One of my teammates and I received some additional responsibility to be the Trouble Report Responsible for the team. It entailed managing customer and internal tickets, assigning them to team members, and ensuring they were completed on time. This turned out to be a big responsibility.
I wouldn't want to dwell too much on the details, but most of us were restless, and we jumped at EVERY opportunity to work! I remember reading design documentation in the hotel at night as I was so enthralled with everything.
As a last thing to mention, my birthday was (I mean it still is) on the 16th of December. We were pulling some overtime to handle one of the tickets. One of our Swedish colleagues learned that I was doing overtime on my birthday, and he came over with a slice of cake and told us to go home to celebrate. It was a really nice gesture. I don't think he meant much by it, but it was a very memorable moment for me. Never underestimate a simple act of kindness.
Going home
After all the training, I can safely say that we didn't learn that much. This may sound surprising, but no amount of preparation compares to the real thing. Actual work was different. They may have taught us how to publish documents, deal with trouble reports, and use sprint boards, but they couldn't prepare us for all the company politics and how to deal with all the different customers. Looking back now, we were like a bunch of kids hell-bent on fixing everything, lacking any context, like a young farmer sowing all the seeds without the thought of how they will deal with it when harvest time comes. What we may have lacked in experience, we made up for it with the sheer zeal and dedication of youth. This is why I've found it to be beneficial for a company to mix some young but extremely motivated people together with hardened seniors.
I especially appreciate our manager. She had her hands full. Imagine a bunch of hyperactive, hyper-motivated "kids", who are running around trying to fix EVERYTHING. The amount of effort required to direct them to things actually needs fixing. The amount of drama she had to deal with... My respect for her further deepened when I was in her shoes, as a manager of 22 people, having to deal with exactly the same things she had to deal with. Regardless, it was a golden age for us and for the company as well with record profits, and amazing feedback from our customers.
All in all, I made some friends, most of whom I consider friends to this day. I learned the basics of technical writing, topic-based authoring, DITA, and much more. I'm truly glad for this opportunity and wish the best for everyone who shared this experience with me.