Living through time

 

   Thing which never change is changes. All the time, everywhere, everything is changing. About hundred year ago just first planes started to take off and now days basic travel can't be imagined without flying (technically You can imagine or travel different ways, but it is not the point). In my childhood computer, even a console, was rare thing, but now consoles, tablets and other stuff is daily basis, and it is hard to imagine a day without it (and again, You can, but still not the point). And Yesterday I had phone with old Android version and now I have with new, and I had to adopt to changes. Extra amazing features!

    Adopting to changes is like drinking water, you can live without it, but how long until sugar will brake You?
 

   Maybe my personality is helping me or maybe I just don't care much, because seems like I quite easily adopt to changes. Going from slow boring and repetitive work to fast and challenging, was the best thing. From Windows to Apple (still work related stuff), from Jira to Bugzilla. Every change is fight for survival. Live or die. Or better – finish project on time or postpone release, get the newest  updates or live with crappy old version.
 

    Then I had job interview for current job, I got a question – "It wouldn't be a problem to you to work with Apple products?" and in that moment this question was strange for me, and my answer was similar to this – "of course not a problem, I could work with anything, just give me some time to learn". At that time I didn't know how people sometimes stuck in one place.
 

    At conferences, other blogs and books (at least which was recommended to me) often topic about "changes" comes up. And seeing all the things around me, I sow that. That strange thing. Even in my self. How changes are not accepted, struggling in same environment, with same issue without doing something. And I see myself, with broken screen, several years old phone. Which is lagging and crashing, often restarting without any reason. And problem is not money, it is avoiding changes.

And while I am writing it, looking around and I see all the stuff which should be changed. Adopting changes is hard, even harder then it affects Your life, like - start to make coffee from different beans, or buying new clothes because old ones was taken away (hope You are getting idea... that this is not about what it is). 

   And now Your are thinking I will gave life changing suggestion what to do. Well... No. I don't know what to do, somebody sometimes say they know and they do stuff, and I will leave it to them. I love to have eggs and bacon every morning, have same phone and same job and no changes in my daily problems. But I also love to get new projects, challenges to defeat, dragons to kill or pokemons to catch. Not much about testing, not much about life (this is not that I thought in the beginning and not such end i wanted). Well... hope next time more about testing.

Your friendly neighborhood Tester

Working Your ass off?

 

(Meaningless graph representing nothing)

If I don't work – how to know if I am not doing my job? Got similar question couple days ago, and we started small discussion about tester and how to check their progress.
Imagine situation – there are 100 bugs and release is in a week. Till release date – 25% of bugs was reopened and 30% had to be tested in release period. Developers starts to fixing reopened bugs, merging them in release branch. Release is going on, everybody working their asses off. And finally regressions are done and release is sill not fully tested. More bugs are merged there. There was so much things to do in a week, that correctly test expected bugs amount was to difficult task.
So did I done my work or not?
Two weeks before release – there was 80 bugs fixed, but not tested. In next week 20 more appeared, was fixed, but not tested. And then I jump to work. In this situation I have one question – what I did last three weeks?
It doesn't matter what, but definitely not my job.
If in this case my manager would have looked to amount of new code lines in release, I think I would be fired. To check progress is not hard, but this need to be done, and even if I don't have manager, I should check my progress just to know if I could sleep next couple days, or I will be working as horse to catch up.
To make your whole team sweat – just do Your job late. It definitely will make every one enjoy extra stress.
This case is just theoretical idea we discussed, and most of thoughts was not even mine. But using both approaches can be useful – for example if You hate Your job and coworkers, well just do what You wouldn't do if You appreciate Your job. Or just extra stress before Christmas is useful for every one.

Your friendly neighborhood Tester.

I need to become architect (still issues with environment planning)

I still have issues with architects or environment planners – issue is very simple and common "path around buildings and in whole neighborhood". Then they were planning infrastructure did they walked in paths they draw? I think they didn't, because design and user experience is totally different.
After long and hard bug hunting day and evening in gym, I want to go home as fast as I could, so I am walking in the shortest distance, that means that I need go over paths that are not tiled (don't know correct term and to lazy to search more). My shoes gets dirty or dusty, depends on weather, and if I am correct, I am passing private property. But I am not only one like this, big part of neighborhood is using same path.
Same things can be seen in my work too. Sometimes feels like designs are engineered, not created for ordinary users to be used. So users if they must use software – they starts to find work around(s) or use products in unexpected ways. Good example from my experience – people better change error message text then registers bugs and waits for fix. Sounds strange, but I sow is at least several times, how 'must use' software becomes people imagination drawing board to make life easier. Like a path I walking daily. I wasn't first who walked there, but I am one of users.

I put away this post for a day, tried to give some time to sink in, maybe I could think for solution to this stuff, but I can't. Can I register bug for neighborhood flows? I don't thinks so. I can walk on paths which are designed for it, but doing so will cause me wasting my time of relaxing...
So I will keep struggling on same issues and will do nothing about it, like most of us. And I will try to get most of it – come back home faster, even if my shoes are dirty...

Yours friendly neighborhood Tester.

View of the bug - project manager

These are waters where I have not much knowledge. Worked just with several project managers and I have just abstract understanding about they perspective to the bug. Just only of they face expression changes then they hear about issue. And I have seen some not happy faces than in the end of project there is some major issue, or even better, when issue appears after some time then project is in production and no money left to fix it.
(I feel joy seeing other people struggling.)
That project managers don't like bug late in the project is understandable, because later bug appears it cost more to fix. And than You are managing money, people and time to deliver project - everything that affects project, burns money, nobody is happy with it.

It is kinda boring to write about managers. What I am planning to write - I end up in money issue. Then there are money - no problems, no money - problems. Just basic. 

Yours friendly neighborhood Tester