Monday, January 23, 2006

TECHNICAL WRITING SAMPLE

Congratulations on your purchase of the Fony High Definition Satellite Liquid Television. Before you begin the setup procedures, take a moment to acquaint yourself with the features included with your new television. Also, pause to consider how much money you just spent on a TV while living in a poverty-stricken, war-torn world. A TV. For real. Say a little prayer of thanks that you live here in America, the land where comfort and opportunity are taken for granted.

Carefully remove the Fony High Definition Satellite Liquid Television from its Styrofoam packaging (which will sit in a landfill until after your grandchildren have been buried by their children). In selecting a place for your television, be sure that there is plenty of room for ventilation as the television can overheat without proper air flow. It sounds like I’m talking about a living creature, huh? Like a child maybe. You know, with the money you blew on this thing, you could have adopted a child from China that will be sold into a torturous life in the Chinese circus and be forced by her cruel employer, Stromboli, to play only the sleaziest theme parks and Vegas hotels for mere pennies a day.

Plug the male end of the power cord into the female end of the power outlet. If you have any adolescent children nearby, now would be a great time for an object lesson in “the birds and the bees”. I mean, heck. In this modern age, there’s a good chance you aren’t telling Little Suzy something she hasn’t already learned by watching—oh—wait—television.

Your HDSLTV also comes equipped with internet capabilities. Simply remove the USB cable (item #2) from its packaging and plug the male ends into the female ends of port #4 (see diagram if you can’t figure this out (and if you can’t you don’t have any business owning this thing—this is the 21st century, George Jetson!)) and any port on your PC. Et voila. You've now got, like, the biggest computer monitor in the world.

Please don’t misunderstand this manual, folks. I know it sounds like I’m all angst-y and sarcastic (my new years resolution was to tone down the sarcasm--I think I'm failing), but in truth, I’m just green with envy. I’d like to have one of these TVs. Instead, I’m stuck writing the manual telling you how to operate this wonderful piece of technology that my poor arms will never hold. What am I doing here? There are so many other things I could be doing with my life. I’m going to let someone else finish this. Good luck setting up your HDSLTV. Hope it doesn’t break on you.

I'm going to write something about magic wishing bears instead.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you've got a real future in this business, Forky. You've taken all the eye-gouging boredom of techinical writing and combined it with a heaping serving of American guilt! What originality! What genius! What style!

The Cliff said...

I feel that the chinese circus isn't as bad as you make it out to be...They may not make much, and they may only play places like Vegas and Sleazy Theme parks, but people will see them and say "Hey, That girl that is doing the weird upside-down chandelier thing with the Champagne glasses is cool, i want one". It my be that girls lifelong dream, or me, you and the Van Bakers all exploited some poor chinese child who dreamed of being a rocket scientist.

Queen, III said...

I'd hire you right away!!! You're just exactly what the technical writing world! Shock 'em! That'll get their attention!

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