The Recession hit me!

Recession! This is the most frightening word for the working class. In the fast pace of economy when the global race is towards building robust nation, jobs for millions of educated, semi-skilled, and skilled persons, and supporting livelihood for the dependent families, takes a halt, all of a sudden. Everything, which was looking rosy, becomes gloomy. A depressed, anxiety filled environment with no certainty of future ambition and career, looms large. The downturn of economy keeps us silent, guessing and waiting for it to revive again. For commoners, it is very difficult to understand as to why does recession hit. However, even if we understand we can not avoid once it hits.

I have been the witness of three recessions in my small working career of 14 years. My own industry’s failure in nineties to sustain further left me to fend for my own to look for the alternative option of livelihood. At the same period, the dotcom bubble burst, threw away thousands of software techies on the roads to look for a fresh start. My own industry’s recession was far less in magnitude than the dotcom failures. We were in thousands whereas the software techies were quite greater in numbers. The techies who had gone to USA on H1B visa in the prospect of earning and making their career successful were denied jobs and came back home with the lost face.

The roads were wide open but neither those techies nor I knew where to go or where those roads end. Most of the occasions, I found myself trying my luck for the same place where even techies were ready to give a try. Knowing clearly well that none of us can be lucky every time and the job we can get is of our choices. We were compromising with our aspirations, aims, and career. It needed lots of self assurance to bounce back again and keep trying. Not many could take up the challenge of the grind. Some of my own colleagues surrender to the fate and kept hoping that something happening for them rather than taking things in their hand and trying. Some of the techies whom I knew went into depression and mental instability. It was really a tough time. But tough time passes off and tough people survive. Yes! All those who fought their battle with tough time, survived and I too survived with a paltry job to make my living in the hope of rising again.

Toiling hard with aim of building my career again I joined the race of techies too in the years to come and became part of the software industry as a writer. Yet, another worst hit recession came as a part and parcel of down turn of the economy in 2008. The hype, the false hope and the greed of achieving higher and faster have failed the principle of economics. The miseries are unimaginable. The present recession of 2008 is continuing. We did not learn the lesson from our past mistakes.

It is going to be the end of 2009 and speculations are high that the industry is reviving and jobs are going to be back again. Yet, clear and visible signs are not to be seen as to how the industry is going to do in the coming year. Amidst the recession monster biting bitterly, the tryst of the employees to save their jobs have been the one and only aim than to be aggressive on their job and perform brilliantly. Tough time has shown that how individual employee behaves in the difficult times. To safeguard their own interest people have gone to the level of betrayal, back biting, snatching working credits and bad mouth. This has been the common phenomena of the working place. Be it the company, which boasts of their great working culture and open door policy or the smaller companies, employees have shown their character alike.

Common professional goal were not the goals of the employee, which could sustain the company and do well even during the recession. The obvious results were that the hard workers got axed and so called smart workers retained due to the cost saving. It hit me and all of those who believes in doing their best by virtue of hard work. This recession have taught many of us that being smart worker is better than hard worker. But, we have also been taught that there is no alternative of hard work. The question is whether to be smart worker, steal some body’s work and take the credit or be the hard worker, take the challenge and perform to the best of our skills. Of course my conscience and morale will not let me fall into the first category of smart worker, but definitely I would strive hard to protect my interest and try to get my due credit at the work place. This recession is not going to change my character and for that sake any recession is not going to change my character. It is because of our character and morale we could face any of the recessions and come out successful.

Why Technical Writing

The mesmerizing beauty of words looks beyond the fascinating world, fathoms into the deep oceans and searches the hidden treasure at the bottom of the sea. It goes deeper into soul searching, unveils the untold story, captivates the whirlwind of the emotional mind; find many such things which are ruthless and disturbing yet find meaning when it is narrated. However, there are writings which do not relate to any of such things and technical writing could be one of them.

Technical writing as my present profession, I do not have vast experience writing user manual, online help, tutorials, release notes, admin guides, install guides and quick start guides, just to name a few. I came into technical writing by accident or call it by chance. Again from non-writing career to writing career was also merely luck. As a freelancer I had chances of getting published quite a number of times before I got a break into writing career. But these publications never gave me slightest of idea that I too can make writing a career. When hit by the recession in my non-writing career, I thought of doing many things to make my living but writing was no where closer to my thought even in dreams. This could be because I never thought that I can make it as a career primarily due to the fact that I was not able to assess my ability to write for a living. Though I love writing, I never believed that I could write well. So, one fine morning when I realized that I had little money to last beyond few days to feed me, I thought of giving it a shot and then figured out a small advertisement in the newspaper seeking freelance writer.

I went straight away to meet the editor and after a small introduction he agreed to give me a try. He gave me a topic and asked me to deliver the write-up within a couple of days. The first draft of the write-up was impressive and he asked me to work on it in detail and with final typeset and proofreading he made it the cover feature of the magazine. That made up my confidence and I realized that I can do it. Then on writing has been able to sustain me, feed me, and give me a place among the professionals. Well the freelancer tags remained just for a few months initially and I got a break into a monthly magazine which gave me a platform to regularly contribute to the magazine, liaison with resource people, do public relation job, organize press meet and be the part of the other press meet too. Pressman’s job had always fancied me from the beginning but I never knew the rigours of their hard work and pittance pay cheque. All I had seen was the glamorous few big names in the industry who are idolized enjoying the life of journalism profession. But at the same time the larger mass kept on toiling just to get even recognized and forget about getting their due.

The big names were not only wonderful writers but powerful speaker, manipulators, shrewd detectives, and good in powerful public relations. Yes! The journalism career is mixed of all this. Even one element is missing in you; it can get others taking over you. You can remain a good writer but can never be a good journalist. In case if you are coming from an orthodox background and can not mixed with the polluted surroundings and the corrupt people, better re-look into yourself what you want from journalism. It is not everyone’s bait. Well, with brief stint of so called journalism career, I had disagreement umpteen times with my peers and the editors, managed and survived, cajoled and cowed down. In between all this, as the mind found solace of being in the writing world, hunger haunted continuously. I could hardly sustain the taunt of happy mind and empty stomach.

Then I realized, hunger can not breed the beauty of words. Search and the alternatives are two things which can give insight to look beyond the horizon. First, I off loaded the journalism tag to become a medical writer, then an academic writer for shorter period of one year each. But both these in the silicon city of India without realizing that even the silicon industry would be hiring writers to work for their task force. And these writers would be called technical writers.

Kudos to naukri dot com, which made inroads as online job portal and gave an opportunity for the job seekers to post their profile free of cost. Similarly it gave the opportunity for the employers to look for the potential employee from the data base. I too posted my profile and to my luck, looking at my previous writing experience, one prospective software employer wanted to test my ability to see whether I can fit into their basket.

There was a written test, a technical test and the face to face interview, to see whether I can learn things faster and implement that into the work. And that’s how I wore the tag of a technical writer. The very question, do you like technical writing, sometimes puts me off. I do not like to answer this question being my true self. But often this question keeps on coming to successive interviews and I ought to answer this. However, how often you can lie. This question becomes the part of the recorded test which is done by pen and paper. Initially you makeover, wear a mask, try lying, misleading and boasting that you love technology and you want to write about it. But not longer you can lie to yourself. True, I like writing but may not be technical writing. Then why do I become a technical writer.

The answer is, it gives me money and status of being a successful writer, where I can boast that my writing sells. My writing has value for money. My writing is part of the requirement; it is not just the fanciful world of time pass. My writing helps people complete a task; my writing helps people understand a software or hardware product. It is truly meaningful and that’s what gives me satisfaction of being a technical writer. I might aspire to create different piece of writing of my choice but in my professional work sphere I am just a technical writer and I value writing the technical manuals. Some times when I ponder upon thinking what to say when people ask me about my profession. I can definitely say, I am a writer and a technical writer specialist.