Developer battled to write his own documentation, but lost the boss fight

On Call Welcome once again to On Call, The Register's reader-contributed column in which we tell your tales of tech support troubles and other workplace woes.

This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Gordon" who told us about his time working for a storage vendor as the sole developer and maintainer of an application used by around 50 other employees.

"I took over this package, gave it a nice overhaul, and wrote what I thought was a pretty good user guide that was about 40 pages long," Gordon told On Call. He then updated the manual each time he finished a new release of the software. At the time this story took place, it was sensible to print such documents. Gordon did so using the office photocopier, a stapler, and a little shoe-leather to distribute his work.

That practice caught the attention of someone in the company's bureaucracy who knew that the technical writing team had responsibility for printing, publication, and distribution of important documents. Gordon was therefore required to engage with that team, which he says jumped at the chance to help because it would mean they looked busy.

A team of three tech writers therefore started to edit Gordon's little manual.

Gordon told On Call their "updates" and "improvements" were nothing of the sort.

"They significantly obscured and changed the meaning of some modestly technical content," he wrote.

As the tech writing team and Gordon exchanged drafts, their relationship became strained to the point of undisguised animosity that meant formal letters became the only safe means of communication between the warring parties.

The tech writers eventually sent Gordon a note to the effect that a conversation had become necessary to address complex issues.

Gordon replied that if the issue was too hard to address in writing, he knew some more competent technical writers who could help.

The tech writers decided not to overlook the insult and instead complained to a manager about Gordon's behavior.

They responded by telling Gordon that if he didn't stop being so uncooperative, the tech writing team would stop work on the project.

"That was just what I wanted," Gordon told On Call. "So I tried to take him up on the offer."

He instead received a reprimand, and not long after a termination notice.

Have you endured documentation dramas? If so, let us document your story by clicking here to send On Call an email so we can consider your story for a future column. ®