Archive for July, 2004
Slashdot has an interesting article on Automated Software QA/Testing.
“The only people I have seen treated worse are the help desk crowd. The workload was terrible and when layoff time came, who do you think got the axe first?”
I’ve been really lacking in blogworthy things to say lately, however I do want to catch up on some things…
Dan, yes, let’s get together soon. Now that I have wheels this has become much easier. We can talk geek until Janice’s eyes have rolled back in her head…
Tong, I’ve left IT and it would seem to be permanent as I’ve had enough. I’m not sure what is next on the agenda but I’m thinking about it.
Shnewt. You’re an idiot. As such, you would fit in well. Let me know if you want a job.
As per Biff’s request…
I did indeed start work. It’s the same as before; the people are nice but mentally challenged, the work is mind-numbingly boring and predictable. The commute is pretty good given how early I start and getting off at 4PM kicks ass.
The machinery is in an amazing state of disrepair. Yesterday an air line blew off and hit me in the knee and then a ram fell off. Today a bigger lump fell off and landed on my foot, followed by the other ram falling clean off… Job security is a good thing.
I am content for the time being and yet bordering on embarrassed for returning. As such, I most likely won’t post much about it except to poke fun at the misfortune of my hapless co-workers. I think I have excreted more sweat in the past two days than in the past six months. You didn’t need to know that but Shnewt asked and you really should have known…
I got my Linux Technical Resource Kit from Novell today! Three DVD’s of SUSE products including 9.1 Professional! Not bad given that it was there for the asking and I didn’t even need to pay for shipping. Of course now I need a DVD for my Linux box but I’ve been thinking about a DVD burner for backups so I can just move the old DVD along to my Linux machine.
Alrighty then, time to defrag the pr0n server, eat a muffin and write some poetry. Hey, it’s working for Saddam…
Karan asked if I was sure that I wanted to leave QA. I think I can say yes though not without some disappointment.
I was always proud to be a part of tech; in the first two years I thrived on the challenge and the newness of it all. Infowave was a magical place to work; the technology was so cool and the people even cooler. Even with the insane hours, we loved what we did and loved being together. Ask anyone who worked there and they all say the same thing. Stockhouse was a very similar situation.
The later years brought the layoffs which is part of the game. It sucks to be looking for work. It sucks to go through several rounds of interviews, write all the tests, make it to the final round and then not even be worthy of being contacted to say they went with the other guy. That happened to me several times.
Then there are the jobs that just suck. ResponseTek falls into that category; while the people were mostly great, I dreaded going into that place everyday. Towards the end I had sort of accepted my fate to toil away testing a shitty Flash application. (The idea is a good one but Flash was a poor choice…).
That’s no way to live your life so when Spanky gave me the chance to return to Infowave, I thought about it for three seconds and said yes. If I hadn’t returned to Infowave, I’d already be doing something else; ResponseTek would have killed me. They still think it’s 1999…
I didn’t intend for this to be an overview of the four years I spent in IT. I know that I’m tired of it all and that I don’t believe the hype anymore. I’m jaded and have lost the desire to be a part of it. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with QA over the years. I wanted to do web development or be a systems admin. QA at Infowave was cool, at Stockhouse it was easy, at ResponseTek it sucked.
So why not return to school and be that web developer or systems admin? I thought about that. What would it get me apart from more debt? A few more years of long hours and worrying about the quarterly results. Now days it’s expected that QA guys have professional programming experience but I don’t get that. What the hell do you want? A tester or a cheap programmer; I can sorta read code but I’ve never written it at work.
I ‘know’ C/C++, VB and Assembler. “The position requires .NET, C#, ASP and SQL” The next position requires SOAP, XML, PHP and MySQL. You can’t win and I’ve seen lotsa positions in the $35k range that require two years of programming experience. No thanks. I’m done and it doesn’t hurt too bad. I just want to get on with my life.
Mostly I’m disappointed at the way things have turned out but I have zero regrets (well, I wish I had made some larger payments on my student loan…) I guess I could have another run at tech but I just don’t have the desire to do what needs to be done.
I was a part of it. I’ve lived large at a dot com and worked with cutting edge technology. It was a fantastic time and I’m pround of what I’ve done and the friends that I’ve made. I don’t think I was an amazing tester but competent might be a good description.
I know there’s something else out there for me but I don’t know what it is. Rachel lent me a book called What Should I Do With My Life? I’m about a third of the way through it and it’s been very good. The author interviewed various people and tells the storey of how they ended up doing what they do.
It seems that very few people *know* for sure what they are destined to do. Some think they do and then realize they were wrong. The thing is, they kept looking. I’ve done a few things in my life and it’s time to do something else.
I know that I probably will never be rich; that’s ok, money doesn’t solve all your problems. Chances are that I won’t sort out cold fusion or bring peace to the Middle East and that’s ok too. The main thing is that I’m finally at peace with leaving. That was never the case before which was why I kept plugging away. Now I can let it go.
I have no idea what the future will bring but I’ll keep looking.
I went to Paul and Rachel’s place last night and the kitchen is looking pretty good. I guess I wasn’t worthy of being shown ‘Biff’s new shoes’ as the subject never came up.
Now that I need to decide on a new career path, I went to Chapters and found a nice selection of books to help you figure this sort of stuff out. Rachel also gave me a book which looks good so far; I guess at this point anything that might trigger an idea would be a good thing. In the end, I left with a copy of Canadian Business magazine; my portfolio has been neglected as of late so I figured it was time to give it some attention.
It was interesting to see that I immediately gravitated back to my old interests, namely architecture and finance. I spent over an hour in there, looking at different books and not one was a computer related.
The Indy is back in town for the weekend but I don’t really follow it anymore so I’m not all that interested. I still love F1 but the whole IRL/CART thing leaves me cold.
I am happy to report that the barge for the fireworks has been put in place in English Bay! All I need to do now is wait for the yahoos to roll in and provide some entertainment… That’s always a good time!
I noted that the comment spam was down today and I’m testing my theory that they target abandoned blogs more than active ones.
Basically what I’m getting at is that while I had nothing to say, I posted anyway to see if the spammers stay away.
Don’t you feel good for visiting?
