Career Change from Engineering to Technical Writing

by Tamara Wilhite
(Fort Worth, TX)

I had worked as a process engineer for about five years. It paid well, but that was partially due to the hours beyond 9-5, the evening calls for advice when something went wrong, and stress to keep the production areas going. After all, supporting the process was my job. Ordering parts, verifying chemical inventory, that was the mundane part. Figuring out how to fix complex assemblies for minimum cost - and doing so while having the backlog of work grow while we waited, only added to the challenge. I also wrote our reports, assembly manuals, and software how to guides.

I had a bouncing baby girl. Beautiful, but with a moderate health problem. I went back to work after maternity leave since the medical benefits were through me. However, the increasing number of doctor visits for my daughter used up all my vacation time.

After leading a software implementation project that automated many of the tasks I did, I found that I wasn't needed as much. There had been three process engineers, and the labor savings was now such that they only needed 2.

I was allowed to stay until the end of our current contract, buying some time. I filled in where needed, and that was increasingly answering questions on our new software. One day, I ended up on the phone with our technical support staff. "Are you are following our how to fix your password?"

I ended up arguing why their "how to fix your password" troubleshooting guide was wrong, and detailed out what it should have said. "If you think you can do better, go for it."

A few hours later, I e-mailed back a rewritten user solution, that was also written in layperson, not programmer, terms.

My supervisor asked me why I did that. "The software is inhibiting productivity. I get these questions all the time. And the production people ask me questions because they can't understand the instructions or talk to the help desk."

My boss said, "I think that is that department's job."

"Then maybe I'm in the wrong department."

A couple of days later, I interviewed in the software support department. I was transferred to the software support department, to rewrite all of their software solutions, user guides, and training documents.

It also happened to be a flexible schedule position and available to be part time.