Well, the fact that you have managed to fit in among such smart peeps is a credit to you, but I think you're being a bit bashful by suggesting you don't do those things. It's just really, really easy the vast majority of the time for you. That might be because the things that you don't entirely control (who you work with) and the things you do control (your own behavior) work nicely together to create a really productive culture.

Let me prove my point. If you had a tendency to cry wolf, or were perpetually out of sync with the devs... what would happen? Someone would fix that problem, probably through peer pressure.

In other words, I think you're probably pretty good at bug advocacy. You're also in a place where bug advocacy is less about people skills and more about facts. You still have to collect and explain those facts effectively.

Anyway, I think your situation brings up a good point about context. I still think a testers job is to make the product better, but what that means varies widely based on the context of the organization, product, and other things.

In your case, you've got a sweet gig and your life is pretty pleasant and productive. In another environment that is not as healthy or effective, it might mean something entirely different. But the job is the same - to make the product better. A tester might have to do much more than test stories to make that happen, but it's still part of the job.

Yes. I quit my mindless job and joined a startup, doing stuff I enjoy from an office in my home. I also started my own startup, trooptrack.com.

I've only ever had southerners think my name was David Chris Jansen. I'm not sure why, but maybe there's some funky regional bias in play.

It's kris-TEE-ann-sen, I think, but really if you get the pronunciation right and the enunciation wrong, it's not likely even I will notice.

Thanks!

Dave

My guess is: 

VEE rah rah gaw vah n

That's a hard name.

Hi Baldguy,
We use Atlassian Confluence for at least 95% of the documentation we create. This even includes our product documentation and help manuals. It's nice because it's easy to collaborate on stuff - no files to download or email around, and when we're done we can export them as a pdf if we need to (we usually don't, except when we are responding to an rfp or something). It's great because you can really organize your documentation however you want, it doesn't become stale as easily, and it is uber-accessible.

Does that help?

Dave

Like this:
%ownership * profit

Yeah, that's kewl stuff. Thanks Mike!

Yay! I got one victim. Now email it to all your friends - I'm hoping to get this puppy listed on Snopes.com!

Sunny. You're lame. Did you even read the story?

And, I suppose that since Keith has called me on the Genesis bit I'll have to post that soon. Just not today.