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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/FishermanAlive5786 on 2025-09-08 15:53:20+00:00.
I work as a technical writer for a mid-sized engineering firm. My job is to take the chaos of engineer-speak and turn it into clean, understandable documentation for clients, regulators, and sometimes even legal teams.
Normally, I get a solid 3–5 business days to write and polish a report, review technical data, clarify ambiguous points, add diagrams, cite standards, and make sure it actually reads like something a human wrote.
Enter our new Project Manager. Let’s call him well, we won’t, because acronyms and nicknames aren’t allowed here. Let’s just say he came from a background where speed was valued above quality. First week on the job, he tells me, “I don’t see why these reports take so long. We’re going to start turning them around in 24 hours. I need you to just write what the engineers send you and move on.”
I tried to explain the process: engineers often leave out key details, formatting has to follow industry compliance, and rushing leads to client complaints or worse, regulatory rejections.
He cuts me off: “No excuses. From now on, if I send you a draft, I expect the report back in 24 hours, no exceptions.”
Okay then.
Next day, I get a 20-page data dump from one of the engineers. It’s full of typos, half-finished tables, conflicting numbers, and no clear structure. Normally, I’d spend a couple days cleaning it up.
But I had 24 hours. So I opened the file, dropped the content into our report template, fixed a couple of the obvious red squiggles, and hit send. No formatting, no table of contents, no citations, no standard language, no professional polish, just exactly what he asked for: a “report” in 24 hours.
Two days later, I get copied on an email chain with him, the client, and a couple of VPs. The client was not happy. They said it looked like a rough draft, had missing information, and wasn’t up to the standards they expected. The VPs wanted to know what happened.
He tries to throw me under the bus: “Our technical writer must have rushed it.”
I reply all: “Per [PM’s] directive, I was instructed to return all reports within 24 hours, using the engineers’ drafts without delay. I did not proofread, format, or perform the usual QA processes.”
Silence.
Then, a new email from one of the VPs: “Effective immediately, all technical reports will follow the established documentation process. Timelines will be determined in collaboration with the writing team.”
Back to normal.
PM doesn’t speak to me much these days. Which is also kind of nice.