If You’re So Damn Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

Yes, you need to add that to something else to be useful, usually, but the ability to write well is fairly rare, and it's a skill the guy has, so it's a good place for him to start.

>Writing documentation is a skill that requires more than a good command of the English language. The technical writers that I've hired in the past didn't even have English degrees, but were excellent at what they do.

non-technical products require documentation as well.

Like I said, he'll need to learn some other things to go along with the writing ability, but having the writing ability there up front helps a lot, and hopefully allows him to find an employer who might be willing to take a chance and be patient while he learns the rest of the trade (at a lower pay rate, of course, than an experienced documentation writer)

And I'll say what I like because this is the internet and I will care about you as much as you cared about my five minutes.

Your tone is patronising. You are shouting at me, I feel like a little child in a very dark room with a very tall man shouting at me and I have watery eyes and will any moment start crying.

First, English Literature. That is arts. Arts and business are two different things. With english lit you write the subjective rubish you did and make me feel very bad for no reason whatever.

Second, is this all fiction?

Third, how old are you? - just to say I didnt read it all, I didnt wanna cry and didnt like the darkness.

Fourth, it is not smart to study English Literature, you read book instead.

Fifth, it is not smart to apply to jobs you are not qualified for.

Sixth, get a proper degree!

Seventh. Are you saying that someone who went to Harvard would be looked down compared to someone who went to, well I dont know about there in the US, but a rubish university by reputation, unless you were appying to be a bin collector?

Or are you saying that really employers do not want smart people - smart by the standards of reality - that is great university reputation and numbers or letters in your paper- when applying for the jobs which kinda - if not in reality than perception - require a lot of responsibility and someone's intellect you can trust when making far reaching decisions?

To Conclude, I don't like you, whoever that wrote it. It is grim, it is shouting at me, at no point, as far as I read anyway, and if you were so smart you would have made my reading pleasurable and I would have finished reading it, did I think that you showed any reason for me to think that you are smart, your article is full of generalisation, opinions,

You know, perhaps if you are smart enough you will understand this, you article gives those same emotions as - and this is brutal - as those articles written by journalists in populous newspapers did when they were arguing for invading Iraq. I do not say it is of that grave scale, it gives those same emotions.

So god let me pray that you do not become a journalist and so too god I pray that your articles, if of the same kind, do not find their way to HN again.

Really? what is the upwards path there? I mean, is it easier to jump from 'admin assistant' to IT than to just jump into IT with no experience at all?

Work on crap, but also work on your dreams while at it. What do you have to give up beside TV and idling? I bet this English graduate did nothing on his spare time but read Walt Whitman. If he is so smart, why hasn't he reverse-engineered human interaction and learned how to build rapport with people? Hint: you meet people on their terms when you need them. Learn to mimic their personalities and walk in lockstep with them.