Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day of your life - Confucius
When people ask what I do, I tell them I am a software engineer, almost immediately I see their raised eyebrows but the moment I tell them I am into testing, their expression changes which reads, Arre Bechari, development mein kaam nahi mila hoga!
The first thing I got to hear was, ' Your job is so EASY!, Anyone can so it!', Well if it was so easy then why has someone hired me? And why are they paying me? They can as well ask 'ANYONE' to do it and pay much much less!
The next thing I often hear is , ' You don't know how it works! You click haphazardly and get defects!' , Well all I want to say is, I dont need to click haphazardly to get defects I will get defects even if I don't do anything to your wonderfully written code :P
Testing vs Development is one of those never ending topics for which countless number of hours can be spent on debating, a bit like Guys Vs Girls! Initially I tried fighting people and their perceptions later I realized that there is no point in defending what I do!
My Aha! moment was when a developer friend of mine asked me, ' You have been working from X months and you have posted only Y defects?' , I was obviously pissed off but instead of defending myself I told him, you have been working from X months as a developer and you have developed 'ZERO' products? All you do is fix the defects we post?
He told I can't comment on that , I told him then don't comment on my work too!
I still remember the first time I entered our new house, our dream house, our house which was built from scratch, I cant forget that heavenly feeling when I realized that every inch every corner of the house was ours but when I saw water coming out from one of the wall I started abusing the contractor, my parents told me look at the bigger picture, why are you worried about a small thing like that?
I told them when we have paid the full amount what is wrong in expecting everything to be perfect just the way we want it, Now if some guy is spending millions of dollars on a software he obviously expects it to work the way he wants it to!
Just like my house, for the contractor or the person who is building it, its just a brick or composition of cement gone wrong, but for me its more than that, there are feelings associated with my house, I want it to be the way I want it to be!
For a developer, a link is a link, a button is a button, when something is clicked it has to re direct somewhere or maximum he might think of is how what will affect what! For him a simple comma missed can create a crash, its no big deal, but that's the difference between a developer and a tester (hate that word btw) for us those links are more than links, those buttons are more than just buttons, they mean something, they do something, something that the customer is expecting and that's our job to assure a person that what ever he buys will work the way he wants it to! Phew! that's a lot of responsibility ain't it?
I may sound like a melodramatic drama queen but that's the way it is!
When People debate on why cricket is given more importance in India, Why not other sports? I have always thought that other sports have lacked role models, some one like a Dravid or a Tendulkar who can compete with other sportsmen of other countries, that's what will inspire the generations to come, and that's exactly what testing as a profession needs or may be it doesn't need ! ;)
