I use it like you, Robin. Susan, in my vocab, what you were doing was wondering, not worrying. To me, worrying has an adversity to it, even if someone's just worrying a little. Wondering has no such connotation for me.

---

With ita and Robin on assuming "worry" is pejorative. I wonder what my children will grow up to be. I worry that they'll be axe murderers.

Is anybody around to help me wordsmith the intro to a resume? I haven't updated mine in far too long.

The idea I want to convey is that I love doing internal writing, where I influence the design as well as capture it. I keep missing the point. Here's the current draft.

Career Goal Working closely with a sophisticated development team, capturing a design in English. I prefer to work as a Mercenary Analyst; see Jim Coplien's Organization Patterns for a longer discussion. [link]

---

Maybe you shouldn' thave, because I did your first post to be taking inventory and concluding worrying was in order. You were just wondering how much people had on their back burners, then?

Sheeeesh. I hesitate to discuss this, after re-reading that mess I posted. I went back to look, hoping you'd had an unfortunate copying-and-pasting accident, Susan. I can't even believe I posted that. Let's assume all three kids were talking to me while I was typing that paragraph, m'kay? So erm...what are we talking about...

It's getting to where I feel like I can't talk about minor worries that are threatening to become big ones to ask for help because it seems like everyone goes into crisis-mode when I use the "w" word, which makes me worry more than I was to start with and/or makes me feel like a freak. And I'm so not crippled by worry. Even when it was a much worse issue for me than it is now, it still never defined me. Not to myself, at least.

Look even at what you've posted here: minor worries that are threatening to become big ones to ask for help. Even though I now know you're talking about (which is what I would also call) wondering, that's not what the above reads like to me. It reads like: there's a problem, it looks like it is going to get bigger. Help me.

---

Ignore previous; here's the revision.

Capturing a sophisticated software design in English, working closely with the development team. As I see it, a software architecture is an idea. The designer/implementors are responsible for expressing that idea (or those ideas) as code; I express it/them as prose. See James Coplien's Organization Patterns for a longer discussion: [link]

---

I would like to lose the "a" in "a software architecture".

The rest looks good to me.

---

Heh, Betsy, I was just going to paste your quote from the link and say to use more of that language.

---

Betsy, I tend to prefer using a "Career Summary" to a "Career Goal" or "Objective." It's a subtle difference, but it makes the resume "here's what I offer you" instead of "here's what I want you to offer me." And I'm not sure I completely understand what it is you do, but my first draft at your Career Summary would look something like this:

"Writer expert at translating technical specifications of software architecture into clear English for a variety of audiences."

---

Actually, "for a variety of audiences", not so much. I'm shooting for "hire me to help develop your design, then explain it to technical people". Done end-user, done it well, bored now. I actually do want to say "here's what you offer me". Basically, here's what you should want to hire me; if you are put off, you don't want me and I don't want you.

Note that I write an entirely different resume when it's "I need a job badly now".

Thanks, guys.

---

And I don't think I quite use "worry" as a synonym for "wonder" or "think." I only use "worry" when the thinking/wondering is about a possible bad outcome (or lack of good outcome). But sometimes, maybe even most of the time, those worries are very, very mild things. It'd probably be better if I had fewer of them, sure, but they're just not big deals.

---

I actually do want to say "here's what you offer me".

Well, regardless of whether you're in the "I really need a job" phase or the "I want this and this only" one, I still think the resume is for "here's what I offer you" and the interview and post-offer negotiation process is the place for figuring out whether you like what they offer in return. JMHO, of course. Obviously you want a summary that's specific to what you're looking for, but I think resumes should be written from the perspective that the person on the receiving end of it only cares whether you can meet their needs, not the other way around.

---