I wanted to do Arts. Not that I hate Science, but I always thought I’ll do well in Arts. Somehow Commerce was never an option. Now that I look back, I didn’t even consider taking commerce, and that is sad because a large portion of being a grown-up is just money. In short, money was intimidating, Science was interesting and I thought I was creative. So, I did the most sensible thing. I boarded the trend express and ignored everything else. 🙂

I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, and from there I landed a job at Infosys. I barely understood the role I was hired for. I just tagged along because a lot of my friends were going. My role was “Testing Executive” or to make it a bit fancy, “Quality Assurance Executive”. I was trained for 3 months in Mysore and then I got a project to work on in Pune. My training period in Mysore can be a separate blog. Those 3 months made me realize why I had studied IT for 3 years. I was being creative. I got paid for the first time (money was no longer intimidating), and YEAH MR.WHITE! YEAH, SCIENCE!
I will be completing my 3 years in this job soon, and I am as good as Jessie Pinkman in the finale of Breaking Bad.

It wasn’t always bad for Jessie. He learned a lot too, and the same goes for me. Corporate demands you to be more mature and responsible and that in itself is a huge task for a fresher who just completed college. I learned a lot of other things, but I’ll let my skills be on the pages of my resume. Let’s talk more about the role I was hired for: Testing.

There are many roles and responsibilities in any given project. I’ll talk about the two that do not require a degree to understand. Developers and Testers. Developers create the product required by the client. Testers test the product to find and eliminate all mistakes. It is more natural to find the role of the developer more attractive because you get to create. You get to play god. Testing doesn’t sound that much fun because all you do is find mistakes again and again until there is none. However, Testers are equally important. Let me tell you this with an analogy!

Let’s say all the gods are developers working 24*7. Their Client is this universe, a Fortune Infinity Company, and Earth is one of their products. They are underpaid and overworked. Natural disasters are nothing but bugs in their code. The ongoing pandemic is a major flaw since version 2020. Now, what are we if not test subjects on Earth? We have always tried to find and fix major defects on Earth and that’s how we have evolved. We have adapted if we cannot avoid it. Our lives are ongoing Regression Testing.

I hope this desultory analogy makes you understand what is testing and how important it is. It is your life after all. I too preferred Developing over Testing. Part of me still does, but now I understand the importance of my role too. What is the use of creating if it is not maintained properly?

Testing requires being judgmental. Ensuring quality requires criticism. Sometimes, that also means criticizing the code that the developers have written. This is where the conflicts start to arise. Arguments and debates commence between the developers and Testers. A Civil War. Escalation emails dropping like nukes. Outlook becomes a battlefield. It is a rivalry that may never end. This happened to me too. Initially, I was furious and lashed out many times. Eventually, I understood the bigger picture, and I tried to avoid conflicts as much as possible. After all, it is the best way to get things done. It is sometimes difficult working with people you don’t like, but arguing and complaining is a complete waste of time and energy. The whole team is working towards the same output anyways.

The world has changed drastically. Work from home is a norm and I think office life will never be the same again. Cubicles and Chai break with colleagues were the best part about working in Corporate. Especially at Infosys, where the campus is so beautiful that it demands you to walk out of your cubicle and wander around. Ironic isn’t it? Office life is a whole different game. I find myself lucky that I had an office life pre-covid.

All in all, contrary to my prior credence, testing did have some good learnings. Working on a software, removing defects and bugs may not have changed my life literally, but it did metaphorically.