The scourge of writing for a living (for non-journalist/authors)

parc

I'm delighted to say that after a few years of working in a job that had me writing one 16,000 world report each month it's coming to an end :)

Anyone else out there do a lot of writing for a living and realise it's awful?

I'm not talking about journalists or authors. I'm really talking about writing reports for  businesses, or writing one for a particular industry or sector.

Here are some of the reasons it's terrible;

- With a 16,000 word report (my longest one was 25,000), the planning, research, writing, re-reading/writing, editing/making manager's changes is extremely long and arduous. And you've got a just month to do it (plus all your other day-to-day tasks).
- Nobody reads your full 60+ page report, so a lot of your work is simply a waste of time. I blame this on the company - quite an old one, with an archaic way of operating compared to its newer competitors. 

On top of this I did a lot of admin, client meets/presentations which I didn't really mind too much. 

Writing was the worst though - it drains you. I also found that when I went to look for another job, some of my other technical skills were really underdeveloped, as the writing took up so much time. I had to work in my own time to get up to speed. 

Maybe it was just the company I worked for (quite an old one as mentioned), but beware of writing jobs!! Anyone else have this experience?

OldGoat

TL:DR

Ubbquittious

Yep no one reads it. If I see that in a job description I won't apply. There is a lot of emphasis on this in engineering noe, followed by a lot of handing back by non technical people because they don't understand it

jcorr

Make the move into journalism maybe? What about a local paper?

parc

Re; TL:DR


So true :D
[*]

parc

jcorr wrote: »

Make the move into journalism maybe? What about a local paper?

Nah, I've no interest in writing. Good luck to people who have though. 
My issue is the focus on writing loooong reports by old fashioned managers/businesses. 

I'll never apply to a job again that requires report writing. Although I see most reports written by other companies are quite short in comparison to ours (mabe 15-30 page max, versus our 60+ pages).

Write it on the phone with the aul predictive text?..

parc

Should have named this thread - Pointless work tasks or something similar. Would be interested to hear other people's pointless, time consuming tasks they have to do at work

Kamili

parc wrote: »

Should have named this thread - Pointless work tasks or something similar. Would be interested to hear other people's pointless, time consuming tasks they have to do at work

responding to emails - all day

People don't read them and do what they want anyway.

We've all learned to skim material.

Badly Drunk Boy

OldGoat wrote: »

TL:DR

Ah...not really (although I probably would have read the full 16000 word report). :pac:

Donald Trump

You'd wanna see what I get paid for posting shite on here

Being President is only a sideline job in comparison.

Hector Bellend

Move into the skinny mag industry. If that doesnt put lead in your pencil (so to speak) then you might want to consider a career change

Hector Bellend

Donald Trump wrote: »

You'd wanna see what I get paid for posting shite on here

Being President is only a sideline job in comparison.

Huuuuuge

parc

Hector Bellend wrote: »

Move into the skinny mag industry. If that doesnt put lead in your pencil (so to speak) then you might want to consider a career change

Thankfully moving on to a better job soon