Installing a gas stove: Why I think technical writers are important to this green earth

This morning my wife woke me up from my dreams of swimming with the Dolphins in Mauritius and hollered, 'get the gas stove working man!'. Groggy eyed, I went to the kitchen and unpacked the stove. The burners kept falling off and there were no instructions on the stove or the packaging about how to fit the burners and the knobs. That was the easiest part, you can bring your eyebrows down.

So, I pulled the new gas cylinder that weighed a ton. I had to fix a regulator to the cylinder. A closer look revealed a seal on the mouth of the cylinder. I glanced at my wife who was watching my progress. 'Pull the seal off honey!', she purred, as if it was something even Bush would have figured out. I mumbled an incoherent retort and started pulling the strong wire that bound the cylinder and the seal. I pulled hard. No luck, the damn thing wont budge. I squatted and peered on the walls of the cylinder to find some information that would help me. Nope! No such luck. So, I pulled harder. And the wire cut my left-thumb. My left palm was all crimson. I was incensed. What kind of a manufacturer would ship some thing like a cooking gas cylinder without an installation manual? Bharat gas. Ah!


I squatted again and this I noticed an arrow mark on the seal. Out of curiosity I pulled the wire parallel to the ground (I was pulling it 'up' earlier) and the seal slipped off the cylinder's mouth. Neat! But hey, you know, I would have liked it better if some one had stuck a sticker or probably given a single-page manual on how to install the regulator. If you thought my troubles are over. Think again.

Overjoyed with the seal coming off the cylinder I pounced on the regulator and -you guessed it right - blinked. I rolled it around to find some directon, some snippet that could get me started. My wife started admiring the ceiling, suppressing her laughter. But dude that I am, I was least offended. I took the regulator and started jamming it on to the mouth of the cylinder. Nope. Things are never that easy. I tried everything from banging the regulator's head to dropping it off from a height on to the mouth of the cylinder. Nothing worked. It would just not sit and settle down in the mouth. Frustrated I was pulling up the regulator, and I discovered the slide lock around the regulator. Slide up the lock, sit the damn thing on the mouth, and let go! The regulator squatted firm on the mouth, like a drunk on a barstool. Simple, yes, but... Yeah, yeah if only some one has written it some where.

Now, if you thought my troubles were over. Think thrice. The cylinder supplies the stove with the gas using a reinforced rubber and steel hose. I had to fix the pipe on to the tiny nozzles of the stove and the regulator. And I managed to do it using sheer force. And lost more blood from the cut on my thumb. It is absolutely impossible for a housewife to do it.



As my wife made coffee on our new stove, I was thinking: We technical writers are an important link between products and users. We guide and direct a product's use. A rocket engineer might design a rocket, but who tells the astronauts how to use the loo or the inter-galactic phone in the darn rocket? You.

So, my technical writing friend, the world would be a miserable place without writers like us. Don't go on that cloud number nine yet. Relax. Come down here and listen to daddy: Please remember this poor guy that cut his hand while pulling off the seal from the gas cylinder. If you had had written that small note ('Pull gently, parallel to the ground.') he wouldn't have a cut his thumb today. Remember a product's use overrides the product itself. No use. No product. No user. No use. Follow this and you will be able to afford those cruise trips, and yes, Dolphin watching in Mauritius.


Write to me: Suman[at]techwritersindia[dot]com