OK, Let's start!

Shooting oneself in the foot

I've been a technical writer ever since I left the hardware store where I once worked over twenty years ago. I even did an internship in tech writing while still working for that store; thanks to the Berkoff brothers, Stanley and Marty for that.

But, as a tech writer, I am not allowed to make certain mistakes that might (or might not) be forgivable for any other person when creating my resume.

Well, I have been unemployed too many times in recent years to be sanguine about how quickly I will find myself a new position, but one must persevere, mustn't one? So I updated my resume and was quick to make sure the updated version was posted on the various sites where it might do me some good. I also sent copies to various recruiters and made online applications which included it—the whole nine yards, as it were.

Well, in my haste and in my mistrust of the spell checking facility built into MS Word—I rarely use it, except to furnish some laughs since the suggestions are often ludicrous, to say the least—I made an egregious error in the text which I did not catch for more than a week.

Shortly under the line which mentions my "meticulous attention to detail" I included a bullet point:

"Re-created and udated ... documentation..."

Well, I obviously meant to write "updated," but I'm afraid that all the people who downloaded and saw the erroneous resume were likely as not to laugh out loud and totally disregard me as an acceptable candidate for any technical writer or editor position.

Be that as it may, I still receive phone calls from recruiters and am filling out applications for new work, and my hopes have not diminished (at least, not much!) that I will find gainful employment, and soon.

All my respects to you, whoever you may be, dear reader.

Andy