Tech Writers

Tech Writers, Editors and Typists

Turn Page HO!

In 1960 our technical publications department, made up of ex-military men from the Korean War era, had two editors. The editors were administratively lead writers.

One editor spent more time checking that we were working than editing. We were in a wide-open bullpen with the editors in another room.

One morning, the editor walked into our bullpen several times and finally told one writer, "You’ve been looking at that page for over an hour!"

For the next several days, when that editor walked into the room, someone would shout, "Turn page, HO," like a military command. Everyone would immediately turn a page. The editor got the message and left us alone.

Making Copies

In 1960 our office of technical writers acquired their first good copy machine, which used a “wet/dry” process. To make review copies for distribution, the original and a “master” were put together in the machine where they would be exposed to a bright light for a number of seconds.

After exposing the master, the print paper and master were put together into a liquid solution in the machine. After the two were totally soaked (another timed process), they were removed through a set of rollers that squeezed most of the liquid out. The master could be used several times to make additional copies—one sheet at a time.

Most of the writers could make two or three copies before the master became too messy to handle. Some of the clerk typists became proficient enough to make seven or eight copies.

One young typist was on a honeymoon trip when the new copier was installed. When she returned from her honeymoon, another typist showed her how to use the copy machine.

After making several copies of a document, she came back into the room where ten writers and two typists were and said to the typist that had shown her how to use the machine, “It sure does get limp and slippery after the third or fourth time.”

Imagine the reaction of an office of ex-military men in 1960 to a newlywed making that statement.

Cheap

During the 1960s, one person I worked with bummed smokes. He smoked cigarettes and a pipe, which I did also. I seldom saw him with a pack of cigarettes or pipe tobacco. He either bummed a cigarette or would fill his pipe with tobacco from my humidor.

For a while, I rolled my own cigarettes. One day, he came to my desk and asked for a cigarette so I handed him my sack of Dukes Mixture. He threw the tobacco sack back at me and disgustedly said, “You sure are getting cheap,” as he stomped out of the room.

Nitpicky

In 1960, most of us in the RCA publications department were ex-military men from the Korean War era. Many of us had been instructors at one time or another and had the opportunity to be full-time technical writers on this particular job. Each of us was a specialist on the equipment we documented, and we were all a little independent.

Our two editors were, administratively, lead writers.

One editor was very nitpicky and wishy-washy. One month he would remove all articles, such as "a" and "the." The next month, if we wrote without using articles, he would insert them. It did not matter how much we tried to write to his editing style; we could not because he would change his style.

We even had to have memos and letters edited and initialed as "approved" by that editor. One time, I wrote a short, two-paragraph memo, which he edited and initialed.

A couple of days later, I retyped the initialed memo as a double-spaced draft the way he had edited, and gave it to him to edit. He edited it to be exactly the same as the original version and initialed it.

I took both versions to him and asked which I should use, since both were initialed as approved. After looking at both copies, he got quite huffy and said, "You're getting mighty damned nitpicky about this."