Back on the Chain Gang
Working as a technical writer again, I am struck by how little the field has changed. Instead of reaping some of the user-centered activity of the dot-com era, technical writing seems to have drifted aimlessly back to a late-eighties approach:

• Non-writers writing documents
• Developers pushing for less white space
• Analysts wanting to add numbered headings such as 3.5.4.6

And on and on. In a way, I'm damned tired of fighting wars I fought at client sites while I was with Whittman-Hart as a technical writing consultant in '92-'94...or earlier as a technical editor for Synoptic Systems. Subscribing again to the Techwhirl mailing list and reading the stuff that people are talking about is like a trip to 1994 for me.