Tim O’Reilly’s Fear.less story is a unique one, peppered with references to classical philosophy, Daoism and Dustin Hoffman. This part of his speech was quite eye-opening for me (and, I should note, not from his Fear.less story). Tim O’Reilly is one of the contributors that I personally sometimes feel is “untouchable” in some way, because he is so awesome. So, I found it comforting and empowering to learn that just like the rest of us, he has relied on and thrived under the forces of friendship and serendipity. Note that his success in this story doesn’t come from being that guy who is amazing at everything, but from choosing to just try something, and making friends with “Tim O’Reilly, technical writer”.
We work in a profession that can be mysterious to the layman, with a private language that sets us apart like one of the secret societies depicted in The Da Vinci Code! I still remember my first exposure to the computer industry as a humanities graduate. I was an experienced writer, but knew nothing about technology. I’d agreed to help a friend of mine, a programmer, to land a contract job writing a manual. We interviewed two engineers about their project while I took increasingly desperate notes. It was as if they were speaking a foreign language! As we walked away, I turned to my friend and asked “Were they just pulling my leg?” It was hard to believe that this jargon-filled dialog was actually meaningful. It was an inauspicious start to my career.
There are three lessons that I took away from that moment. The first was to be fearless in what you attempt. The job I eventually mastered was an enormous stretch for me. The second lesson was that a difficulty is often an opportunity in disguise. I built my company by bridging the information gap that I first encountered that day. The third lesson was the importance of serendipity in your life choices. I never imagined that I’d build a career as a technical writer, publisher, and entrepreneur. My training was in Greek and Latin Classics! Agreeing to help out my friend proved to be a turning point in my life.
I had a similar experience when I started looking for my first job out of university. Ottawa has two major job markets: government and high tech. I wanted work related to writing and editing, and after fruitless salvos to the few book and magazine publishers in town, I started applying for technical writing jobs. A friend recommended me at his software company, and despite the fact that I had no technical experience except for my minor in Chemistry, I was hired as a junior writer.
Learning the ropes of writing technical documentation was a stretch, but I’m so glad I had the opportunity. Tech writing has provided the financial support for my fiction writing career–kind of like my wealthy patron. And now I find myself stretching again, into the world of branding, copywriting, and promotion. Since I started freelancing and have a better balance of time for fiction, I’m enjoying my commercial writing even more.
Have you ever been utterly baffled by the argot of some elite community and concluded that it was somehow above you? Did you spend your time in college pursuing what all the engineers called a “joke major”? To me, it’s clear that Tim O’Reilly has defied these obstacles through circumstances and attitudes that are available to all of us.
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