Curmudgeon 2:
Denver mittens and beyond
Clearly, our curmudgeon now had a full head of steam, so we decided to sit back and let him and the tape recorder roll on while we tried to figure out how to shape his opinionated vagaries into a newsletter article. We hadn't even agreed on a headline yet. His next remark took us completely by surprise, and made us glance sideways to make sure there was nothing blocking a quick exit should personal safety become an issue.
Leaning forward in his chair, his eyes narrowing to small slits, he said he was prepared to do volunteer work for any presidential candidate who backed legislation that would prohibit those who don't read and use manuals from writing them.
“I am in favor of very severe penalties—including revocation of word-processing permits or even Denver mittens for repeat offenders,” he said coldly.
Whew. This guy is serious, we thought to ourselves, fidgeting.
“What was that about Denver mittens?” we asked timidly. The curmudgeon sallied forth, jabbing the air with his finger. (Completely out of control, in our opinion.)
“There are too many people out there writing manuals who don’t even know how to use one. We need swift and decisive action to stop this! We need a way of keeping these people out of their word processors until they can be rehabilitated. Now, we know the Denver boot works for parking ticket scofflaws. I say we go with Denver mittens for ‘technical writers’ who smugly say they ‘hate to use a manual.’ Just the other day a person who gets paid to write software documentation called to ask me how to do something in PageMaker. Because it was his third time with the same question, I politely invited him to look it up in the manual. He said he looked, but it ‘wasn't there.’ When I looked, I found it in the index, three different ways.”
“But some manuals are pretty bad,” we suggested, nervously eyeballing the pristine row of software manuals lining our bookshelf—some in still-inviolate shrink-wrap.
“No wonder!” he exclaimed. “And the best way to learn how to make them better is to start by understanding why they are bad. There are very few reasons why manuals fail. If you are a writer, it is your duty to know what those reasons are. And how you would do better. If you don't religiously read and use manuals—both good ones and bad ones—then you cannot possibly know which writing strategies work and which don’t work. Good writers are good readers. The best technical writers I know are the ones whose offices are full of marked up, scribbled upon, ripped apart, and reassembled documents. Documents with arrows, question marks, and barnyard epithets scrawled in the margins
“Let’s skip the barnyard epithets,”; we said firmly. “This is a Family Publication.”
“Good idea,” said the curmudgeon, his features suddenly softening into an angelic smile. “I'm finished, anyway. For now.”
“Finished? Really?” We were relieved. When this interview business came up, we weren’t expecting the Spanish inquisition. Denver mittens indeed!
“For now, yes. I've told you why ‘documentation’ is a bad word. I’ve told you why bad manuals exist. That’s enough for you to think about for a while. I'm not getting paid for this, you know.” He rose and walked to the door.
“By the way,” he said with a wink, pointing at our bookshelf, “Nice shrink-wrap.” Then he was gone.