Glitchy George Not Really Caring
A QA tester who doesn't care about the product is not helpful
As a QA Manager for the past 5 years, I have seen my fair share of QA horror stories. But one story that stands out is that of "Glitchy George".
George was a QA engineer who didn't care much about his job. He would always find excuses to work from home, even when it was discouraged. And when he was working from home, he was often distracted and didn't put in a full day's work.
George also didn't communicate the results of his tests very well. His bug reports were often vague and incomplete, making it difficult to understand what he had tested and what problems he had found. It wasn't easy to understand if he did any outside-of-the-box testing.
But the worst thing about George was that he just wasn't motivated to improve the quality of the company's software. He would often test the bare minimum and then pass the release on, even if he knew there were still bugs in the code.
George Story
One day, we were releasing a new version of our flagship product. George was responsible for testing the new features, but he didn't put much effort into it. He just ran through a few basic tests and then passed the release on to me.
I reviewed George's test results and found that he had missed several critical bugs. I tried to talk to him about it, but he was dismissive and said that the bugs were probably not serious.
I decided to do my own testing, and I found that the bugs were indeed serious. One of the bugs could have caused the product to crash, and another bug could have exposed sensitive user data.
I had to delay the release and work with the development team to fix the bugs. This caused a lot of problems for the company, and I was very disappointed in George.
Several people taked to me about his performance, and they were worried about the overall quality of the work that he was doing. Over time, George did improve his testing and communications. A year after being talked to, he left the company.
Moral of the story
A motivated and engaged QA team is essential for delivering high-quality software. If you have a QA engineer who is not motivated or is not doing their job well, it is important to address the issue early on.
To protect the innocent, Glitchy George is an alias name for the troubled QA.