Winding up the tax year

This is the first time that I need to actively submit a tax form. For the last three years my husband has had to because he is no longer employed, but now I have to declare my earnings and expenses. Today I visited my tax advisor and brought with me all the ledgers, receipts, and invoices, whatever I had collected for 2010. She was very pleased that I had done what she had requested of me back in October and then went on to point out a few errors that I had made – nothing too bad, mostly transport related. For example, you can register the full amount of a car expense (garage work, etc.) but only two thirds of the VAT. I had entered two thirds for both. For the buses, where you top up a card, you enter that expense, and not, as I had done, each journey.

She now has to sift through it all to make the correct claim. I still could not give her my 106 for the months I had worked as an employee last year, the bank form for all the taxes they took from me, and all the pension funds and other deductibles end-of-year summaries.

It will be interesting to see what the end result is. I have not yet paid income tax for the months I worked, so will that be more that the rebate we (the family unit) should receive? 

Need to look further afield

I have been busy of late, mainly with contract #3. Contract #1 had a product release at the beginning of the month, so there won’t be much work this month; #2 is cash-strapped so is only providing work when there is no other way out. #3 has a release date in March, so I should be chock-full with work, especially as I started late. But no, as I feared, the developers are so busy developing that they do not have time to provide details for me to document, or even to pass comment on what I worked out for myself by using the product. So far I have kept myself busy comparing what was there the last time I documented (in June) to what I see now, and updating the online help and written guides. To be fair, I have had some contact with a couple of developers on new features – but not nearly enough.

I was informed on Thursday that they have been interviewing local technical writers and that my services will probably not be needed after the upcoming release. I am going on a long holiday just after that, so it means that when I get back I’ll need to go project hunting. I thought of trying now, but companies do not want to talk now about their documentation needs in May.

Anyone need an experienced technical writer?

I can work anywhere

I needed to go to London to visit my ailing mother. It is wonderful being close to her, and now that I am a freelancer I can work anywhere, as long as I take my laptop with me. No more asking for favours from work, or using up precious vacation days. So here I am, working as usual, and mum can see me while I am working and smile.

Generally, I have been working hard since I last wrote an entry. There is a tremendous amount of work and my major problem is getting feedback from subject experts. But it is great fun and I am enjoying myself.

Now I just have to lug my laptop back home at the end of the visit.

I feel great

I need to access a remote site for project #3. I installed the Shrew Soft vpn but was always timed out when trying to connect. The IT person was unable to locate the problem, but remembered reading something about a problem with the software and Windows 7 Ultimate. I decided to go hunting on the internet, and after a number of false starts found a recommendation to disable the Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter. I did this and now can access the vpn. Cool!

Now that I had access I could check for the documentation items opened for the next release. Some were easy and I have already fixed them; others I need access to the system to check or I need expert input.

I also had a call with one of the developers where he walked me through his new development. I asked questions and elicited more info, and it really felt great to be part of the system again.

Drumming up work

When you work for a company you do not need to worry about the work coming in. Usually you are overworked (at least in hi-tech). Occasionally I would hit a dry spell and then look around for things I could improve, such as initiating a project to update an online help (written before my time) that made it very hard to understand the application. Someone pointed me in the direction of an old tutorial, written for the antecedent of the product, which I could use as a base. I worked through the tutorial, learned the new product and updated the material to what is now in place. This became part of the online help, and also enabled me to improve the rest of the help.

Now I am independent. Theoretically, if the work comes in as anticipated I should have no free time (I have three long-term projects); but that isn’t the case in practice. Project #1 is inconsistent – sometimes a lot of work and other times nothing. Project #2 seems to have dried up. Project #3 is in the holiday season.

So what do I do? Look for new projects or try to see what’s happening in the current projects? At the moment I have taken the easy path, i.e., e-mailing my contacts at the three projects to get the material moving to me. I must become more proactive…

Sometimes work can be a slog

I think that when people come on board as product designers/business analysts, they think that the work is exciting. They do not realize that some of the work is absolutely fascinating, such as requirements gathering and analysis, but that there is also a lot of slog work involved – writing the requirement spec, keeping it up-to-date, etc. That of course is life, and I always made a point of not putting off the boring stuff.

As a technical writer more of the work is of the boring type. For example, I have just spent the last week rebranding the complete documentation set for project #3, which was sold to another company and thus has a new look and feel. Working on the new template was fun – making sure it fit our documentation needs, but then came the actual process of moving each document across. Boring is the only word that fits. Thank goodness that part is finally over and the more interesting material should start flowing in once the holiday season is over.

Having said all that, I am of course grateful for any work I receive and get paid for, boring or not!

I sign my third contract

I signed my third contract, just before the Xmas vacation started. I have to admit it was a wonderful contract in that it was straight forward and I understood every word. Amazing (compared to the contract I received from the first company I signed with).

I have already started working, as there is so much to do in too little time. There is a massive rebranding exercise and then I can start modifying documents or creating new material, based on the current state of the product. I hope that the subject experts will put aside time to bring me up-to-date as soon as the holiday season is over.

That is always the major problem when working with R&D. Documentation is only dealt with at the last minute, when the developer in question has finished his work. This leads to overload on the part of the technical writer. We use Agile, so the developments could theoretically be provided to me at the end of each sprint, but that rarely happens. For this release, I am coming on board rather late in the process, so I really need to have the material provided on time. Here’s hoping.