How to be a Successful Tech Writer

So, I was thinking about something today. I'll elaborate.

Consider the episode, "Mirror, Mirror," from Star Trek TOS (the original series) where Kirk and some of his people accidentally transport into an alernate universe where the Federation is barbaric -- similar to how the original Klingons acted.

During the episode, we follow the antics of good-Kirk in the barbarian universe. He and his cohorts do a fair job of pretending to be nasty, so that they can get along in that universe.

Towards the end of the episode, when Kirk and his friends get back home, we discover that Spock -- who did not switch universes -- quickly spotted barbarian-Kirk for what he was, and locked the whole bunch into the brig for the duration.

When Kirk discovers this, he wonders about this: why were he and his team able to pass so well in the barbarian universe, while Spock arrested the bad guys right away. Spock's response:

It was far easier for you, as civilized men, to behave like barbarians than it was for them, as barbarians, to behave like civilized men.
 So, with that in mind, I realized that this somewhat analogous to my situation. I'm a technical writer, and I've been fairly successful in several quite disparate development environments. I've had interactions with many different developers, with a wide range of personality and work habits.

I can explain my success at communicating with all these developers similarly to Spock:

"It's a lot easier for a tech writer to work with a wide range of developers, than for a developer to start working with a tech writer who works differently from the other writers he's worked with in the past."

Okay, so its a long way to go for a minor point that may not even be very accurate. But whenever I can apply something from Star Trek to real life, I do so.