I’m “at work” right now, so I can’t really do this. But I’mma do this real quick anyway.
I have been a tech writer and/or editor-of-instructional-materials and/or instructional designer now for…a long time. Like, over ten years. I mean, those things are not the same things, but they are extremely related.
I started out as a tech writer, which was a job I got out of dumb luck. I had been a contract writer prior to that, which was also a job I got out of dumb luck, errrrrrr nepotism. Yeah actually, I got that job almost entirely out of nepotism. But it looked “interesting” on my resume, which is the whole big reason I got the tech writing job, which was a job I was wholly unqualified for. I mean, I had no fuckin idea what I was doing when I started out as a tech writer. The guy who hired me fully admitted that he only hired me because my last job made me sound interesting, which was practically all he cared about. Having interesting co-workers, that is.
But, despite not knowing how to tech-write, I figured it out pretty quick. I hated every second of the “figuring out” process, during which I was abjectly terrified. Thank god, I had my own private cubicle, where I could hide while I panicked-ly googled how-to-do-everything-at-my-job so nobody would figure out how actually incompetent and clueless I was.
Okay but then I got laid off, and started looking for a new job, yada-yada, and I kept seeing this one unfamiliar term in job descriptions for tech-writerly positions, and the term was instructional design. And I was like, what the hell even is that?
SO long story short, I went to school to become that. And: funny story, upon graduating, I was still like, what the hell even is this?
I’m serious. Upon graduating, I still didn’t entirely understand what an instructional designer even does. By that time, I had snagged a job as an editor at an online university, which was also a job I was wholly unqualified for, but I managed to fake/trick my way into making my bosses think I was super smart and competent, and I have no idea how I did that except that I used to listen to one —no wait, two— of my bosses vent about their lives in our weekly phone meetings. and I would listen without judgement and try to “be supportive,” which is something that sometimes makes people really like you, even if you’re actually an awful person, which I sometimes am.
Okay but so, another long-story-short thing: I wanted to promote to instructional designer at that job, but there were all these gatekeepers. It was convoluted and weird. And also, I still didn’t understand what the hell the instructional designers even did. I asked one of them, what even is your job? and he laughed. He said, “normally, ID’s do like…everything. At this place, we’re like glorified secretaries, it’s practically all data entry. Honestly, though, it depends on the place. It’s different every time.”
So, eventually they “let” me be an “intern” on their Instructional Design team, but they wouldn’t give me the real job. That’s a long story, but it involves gatekeepers and a lot of other convoluted bullshit. It was incredibly frustrating. I learned a few things about what the ID’s did there, but it was still a teeny bit mysterious because they wouldn’t let me be a “real” one.
Eventually, I quit that job to become a “real” Instructional Designer, because they wouldn’t fuckin let me “be” one, and the job I did officially have (“course editor”) paid dogshit, so yeah I jumped ship, which was scary, because that was a work-from-home job which I really loved, and—but never mind about that. I did become a real-live ID about three-plus years ago.
Okay. SO NOW THAT I HAVE ACTUALLY BEEN an ID at three different places now, I can attest that oh my god it is completely fuckin different every time.
And a big part of what makes it different is whether the organization tries to do it all “Agile” -style, or…not.
Which is another biglong rant, which would be called something like “WHat the hell even is Agile?”
Well lemme just say that the place I just got a newjob at is very very Agile, and it’s a little bit like glorified data entry, and weirdly…I kind of like it, which is enormously unexpected. I thought I would hate it. But maybe that’s because when I used to work for airplane-factory-which-shall-remain-unnamed, it was very very not Agile, and I must say…I really did not like that.
But I think the reason I did not like it was in part because it was exactly what the one-ID-from-online-University said to me about some places; which is that the ID’s did everything. It was the proverbial “I wear a lot of hats” job. And I swear I don’t mind wearing a lot of proverbial hats, but at airplane-factory-which-shall-remain-unnamed, it was way too many fuckin hats, including many hats that I had never worn before, and I did not have a private cubicle where I could frantically google how-the-hell-to-even-wear-that-hat. I just had to figure it out, while under the scrutiny of a bunch of Trump-supporting co-workers, because we had a “semi-open office” (Oh ugh oh my god never again open offices are lethal I will die on this hill.)
Actually so as I consider this, it wasn’t even so much that I wore too many hats. It was that I was wearing too many hats in an open office while surrounded by Trump supporters.
My new job, meanwhile, could theoretically all be Trump supporters, but I wouldn’t know. Because it is entirely work-from-home, with no chance of ever going into an office, because the office is in another state.
So meanwhile, I actually did another job interview for a different job a few days ago, and it’s a job that pays slightly better than newjob, has better benefits than newjob and is for an organization that is a “good” organization that I like a lot, as opposed to newjob which is an organization that does “meh” things,
…but I have a sinking suspicion that this other job is a job where they are going to make people come back into the office once pandemic-time is officially “over,” and I have a sinking suspicion that it will be an open office.
And you can’t fuckin’ pay me enough, ever. No. Never. I don’t care how great your pay and benefits are, I don’t care how admirable your organization is, if you have an open office then you deserve to go entirely out of business and also the death penalty wait just kidding that’s really extreme sorry
Oh, and also it sounds like that job is not-very-Agile, i.e., the ID has to “do everything.”
Which I guess I wouldn’t care about at all, now that I think about it, except for the “open office” part. So, probably…no.
I guess I didn’t really explain what the hell ID’s even do, and what the hell it even is, but I don’t have time, because I’m actually “at work” right now. And I have a whole bunch of spreadsheets to look at, and a whole bunch of data to enter. From the comfort of my home office.