Why We Still Love Testing

What brings you joy in testing?

In this episode, Chris, Russell and Tara are joined by Linda van der Vooren to talk about the parts of testing that still make the job worthwhile, even when work itself isn't always particularly joyful.

They explore the satisfaction of making a genuine difference, solving difficult problems, helping others learn and watching ideas take hold beyond the person who introduced them. The conversation also turns to the testing community, finding people to learn from and challenge you, and the wonderfully unexpected knowledge you can accumulate simply by testing different things.

There’s also room for deliberately doing things the awkward way, accessibility, root cause analysis, light bulb moments, learning through play, the potential for AI and automation to remove some of the joy of figuring things out, and why sometimes stepping away from work entirely is exactly what is needed.

Along the way: testing bingo, rubber ducks, friction maxing, saxophones, pub quizzes, the great outdoors, naps and a glass wall erected to protect developers from an overly enthusiastic tester.

What keeps you loving testing?

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Transcript

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0:11: Hello friends and welcome to another episode of the Testing Piers podcast. 
 0:15: My name is Chris Armstrong and today I am joined by Russell Craxford. 
 0:19: Hello, who on this call is called Testing Piers. 
 0:23: So if you ever wondered who it was named after, now we know. 
 0:26: Tara Walton. 
 0:27: Hi, and Linda Fundervoen. 
 0:29: Hello. 
 0:30: We're very excited to have you here. 
 0:31: Thank you for joining us. 
 0:32: But you did speak at the conference last year. 
 0:35: I did. 
 0:35: Big fans. 
 0:37: So today, today listener, we are going to be speaking about joyful things as testers. 
 0:45: It's gonna be a feel-good episode. 
 0:48: We hope, but before we dive into that, Linda Banterheim. 
 0:53: Yes, so I have a habit. 
 0:57: I have a habit of naming inanimate objects in my home. 
 1:01: And like for instance, my plants, I actually started doing it so that I wouldn't forget to water them because if you name them, you grow a bond, and then you won't forget to water them. 
 1:12: That was the idea, but now I've named many inanimate objects like I have a Lego cat, and he's Felix, and the plant over there is Gerda, which is a very old Dutch name. 
 1:25: My saxophone, actually has a Spanish name. 
 1:28: It's Elmetal de Teror because it scared me. 
 1:33: And I was wondering, do any of you give crazy names to inanimate objects or maybe your pets? 
 1:40: So my pets all have people names, but for a very, very long time up until My last car, I used to name my car, usually after women, because they tended to be a little crazy and emotional. 
 1:57: And it's a good stereotype. 
 1:59: Was that the car or the driver? 
 2:00: Yes, teenage years and twenties are are a special time, but I, at some point I stopped naming my cars. 
 2:07: Now my sister has named all of her houseplants and all of my house plants, but I could not tell you their names. 
 2:13: So I'm like Tara, the only thing really that's been named in my household is. 
 2:17: Cars. 
 2:17: So I had a Mercedes called Mel, Merk, you know, and my Cobra had names as well and things like that. 
 2:24: So, I generally name cars, but that's about it. 
 2:27: And to be fair, I only named them because my partner at the time insisted upon it, and she loved naming everything. 
 2:33: So you're not the only one, Linda, I know that much. 
 2:35: I, I have also named cars. 
 2:37: But I don't want to go down that route again, so I think probably for me, it's less an explicit name and more just when the name of the thing escapes me. 
 2:47: And so I'll call it the thingamy bob and the thing of my jig and the, the whatcha we call it the didgeridoo, and the flimy flops it and the, the, the, the, the, the da ba ba ba, and I'll say those things, but it sort of becomes a thing that the kids refuse to pass you just the wooden spoon because you called it the bla blah blah. 
 3:07: And, and I'll just go down that route. 
 3:10: so, not, not a real name and I wouldn't be able to spell it, but that's probably the best thing that's not a car. 
 3:16: My current car is called Kenny, however, so there we go. 
 3:20: Yeah, my current car is the, well, it translates to the Spark Viking. 
 3:25: It's a Poletar, it's the sister of Volvo, and I have a friend who calls his Volvo a Viking. 
 3:32: And the pulsar is electric, so it's sparks, so the spark Viking, but I, I mostly call it the baby because it's my baby. 
 3:39: But. 
 3:40: My, I told you the one Merk was called Mel. 
 3:42: I've got a second Merc, so it's called Mel B, A car B car. 
 3:46: So, so British. 
 3:47: Classic, isn't it? 
 3:48: See. 
 3:49: That brings me joy, and it brought you joy, I think. 
 3:51: So Spice Girls, Russell, you know, I always had you down as a zinger ziggar. 
 3:54: Probably like more of a Mel, more of a Mel C person than a Mel B person, but it's good, we're, we're, we're, we're peeling back the onion, we're discovering more things. 
 4:02: Mel C is my next car. 
 4:03: We're going to have to get a third car. 
 4:07: Oh, this is bringing me joy. 
 4:09: That was a really good segue. 
 4:10: Did you notice? 
 4:11: I just thought I'd pause on it for a second. 
 4:13: So things that bring us joy. 
 4:16: Russell, you proposed this. 
 4:18: You said it was something to do with this thing in the sky that you don't normally see. 
 4:21: The sun, I think it is, yes, as a northerner in England, which is, you know, above Leeds, just to be clear for people, it's something we don't see very often. 
 4:31: We don't have a very wet area, but at the moment it's not very sunny. 
 4:34: So I think it's the first time the last two days I've seen sunshine this year. 
 4:38: And it made me actually happy, joyful. 
 4:42: It brought a smile to my sad, frowning northern face. 
 4:45: It inspired me to think, what brings me joy in testing, what's out there that sort of makes me happy, what brings a smile to my face and all those sorts of things. 
 4:54: And if I'm starting us off. 
 4:56: I think ultimately it's it's I guess professional pride. 
 5:00: I think it's one of the things that I've helped make software that people have bought, used, or other things better, as in more functional, more valuable, more working, and I've done that by testing it myself, but also enabling others, helping others, and that sort of thing, and that is probably my ultimate joy. 
 5:17: Is actually being able to know that the thing I'm working on or with, I've helped make the people that use its experience better, and, you know, in measurable ways at times where you can think back to what you found, how it wasn't gonna work or how it might mischarge someone, and actually because you've tried something odd unusual, you've found this anomaly, and then being able to kind of tell people about it and advocate, for want of a better word, to get it fixed. 
 5:43: Or improved, and I think I get a lot of joy from doing that, but also helping people do that better in general, be it developers or anyone else, just actually improving quality is kind of a, a joyous thing for me. 
 5:56: I am sad at times, but that I do find that good. 
 5:59: Quite general, I appreciate, so I'm sure we can go into more detail though. 
 6:02: I like that it, it feels very impactful when you have those good moments and you can look back on actual, not metrics, for lack of a better word. 
 6:12: I hate tying metrics to, to joy. 
 6:17: But I think it, when you can look back and say, I actually made an impact, I made this customer's life easier, or I made my coworker's life easier, those are always really good days in what could otherwise be, in some cases, really bad jobs. 
 6:32: They are that shining moment. 
 6:34: I think back to the last time I felt joy about testing, and that was when at my last assignment, which is not very long ago, the joy is not very long ago, but I was able to onboard a trainee, someone who just got their software test training, and they were very technical and he, he's so clever, but he had no experience, and I onboarded him on my project and I got to watch him. 
 7:02: Built his confidence and at some point, I asked him like, hey, would you like to give the weekly testing update in the project meeting? 
 7:10: And he just started glowing and said, yes, I would like to try. 
 7:14: And he did so well. 
 7:16: Oh, that, that was honestly a, a moment of very big joy for me that I often think back to because my current assignment is not so much fun. 
 7:25: Not every day is a joyful day, I think as this month has proven to me in this weather, but no. 
 7:30: How about you, Chris, what comes to mind straight away for you? 
 7:32: I struggle with taking joy about things that I alone have done. 
 7:38: It's more like you've said, the joy in improving things but collectively, so being a part of something. 
 7:46: That you can look at and I've struggled a lot with things like pride and and and the like, we call it cultural problems or, or whatever but it's it's always something that I've been quite hard to attribute, but when you can look at something and just like even the great cynic within me can't refute the fact that something has been good and positive that's come off the back of it, so the other week, a friend of mine, Finally, after a difficult job hunt, they got a job and that's glorious and I'm so happy, but they said to me, That not only were they really glad that I, I just kept telling them, I know how rubbish the job market has been. 
 8:30: I experienced it sort of a year in a year or so ago, and so I just didn't want people to feel like they were stuck. 
 8:36: So I wanted to check in on them, just make sure they were right, not tell them how to do their job. 
 8:40: People already have a lot of those things, not tell them you must do this again. 
 8:43: That's not what you want. 
 8:44: People just want to know that they're not stuck, they're not by themselves, that people still care about them cos we, jobs, identities, all those sorts of things. 
 8:52: And the, the most joyful thing that happened off the back of that aside from them getting a job, which is wonderful, but they said that the small acts of kindness, just checking in, making time for people, they said they inspired them to do the same for a lot of their other colleagues who got made redundant, and they said because they, they were able to receive something that made them feel better. 
 9:13: And rather than just going, nice one, bro, they said, I'm gonna make sure I can do that for other people, and that's the whole like paying it forward kind of malarkey, and that's what I like to see. 
 9:23: When you can be a part of something that impacts other people and you don't have to be the one that's just there going, look at me, the superstar, but you've been able to just be a part of making people's lives just a little bit more bearable. 
 9:35: I don't know about you, but I, it's those moments of pride where it's like I almost feel like a proud parent because I can see them taking whatever I've taught them, whether it was by example or like I work as a trainer right now and I teach people testing. 
 9:50: And there's nothing I love more than when I see somebody excited and explaining it to somebody else, and I'm like, oh yay, that's like, that's my happy moment. 
 10:00: The light has gone off, everybody's excited, they're ready to pass on information or, you know, share knowledge, like, that is the happiest thing for me. 
 10:09: that resonates quite a lot and. 
 10:12: I was just thinking about my happiest times in general, like periods of time, and it's always been around when coaching others or onboarding people new to the field, into a business, trying to teach them the basics, getting the basic understanding and helping them find their feet and. 
 10:28: Seeing their. 
 10:29: A click, for want of a better word, and actually them getting joy. 
 10:33: I call it the light bulb moment where you can like see the light bulb come on and they're like, ha. 
 10:40: It's exactly that and it's it's either a concept, it's an idea, it's a. 
 10:43: Demonstration that you do, but it, it, it makes sense to them, where before it didn't or something else, you've explained agile to them and actually rather than just this word that has many meanings, you've actually explained to them the conceptual idea behind it, and actually explained why maybe agility has value versus formal waterfall-esque type process, which is maybe what they'd always thought of software being kind of a procedural-based stage 1, stage 2, stage 3. 
 11:09: so actually being able to explain it, get them involved with it, often with games. 
 11:13: Games have a great way of bringing joy to people at the same time because they, they get you thinking about it, practically experimenting with it, they get you seeing it, not just hearing, for want of a better word, dull theory. 
 11:26: And actually if you're administrating a game, a bit of play to learn, it's also much fun for you. 
 11:32: Often chaos, but also fun. 
 11:34: I love chaos. 
 11:35: Don't we all, yeah. 
 11:37: He said that word with like a little bit of disdain, but I'm like, here for it. 
 11:42: Chaos. 
 11:44: It depends if you're the responsible person having to do it or not, I guess, but yeah, it's, it's a little bit of adaptation and a bit of chaos is definitely fun. 
 11:51: It can bring joy too. 
 11:52: This is so, so some of us like chaos for joy. 
 11:55: Inadvertently, I brought chaos into one of the biggest projects I've done in my career, and that project was at a very large bank where they have a certain way of working. 
 12:06: And I didn't want to do that certain way of working because I don't believe in that. 
 12:10: It's very waterfall, very project manager driven, and I just really wanted to report on quality and risk. 
 12:17: And after about a year and a half of struggling and repeating the same stories to a bunch of managers over and over again, I found one of those managers in the hallway telling one of their colleagues how we look at quality. 
 12:32: And I, I just puffed up my feathers like a proud mama bird and walked away. 
 12:36: Oh, I love those moments. 
 12:38: I've had a couple here lately where, catchphrases and explanations that I've used in leadership meetings have now gone full circle, and they're coming back to me as the explanation on why something is happening or changing. 
 12:51: And I'm like, it's like you guys really do listen. 
 12:55: I just wanna cry and be so happy. 
 12:57: There is something about getting through. 
 12:59: There's nice moments. 
 13:01: There is no, no, I was gonna say exactly the same thing. 
 13:03: It's nice moments when you, when you feel something clicks in people and it and it carries on on those lines and our friend Lee Rathbone used to say that people had a like a bingo card for words that he said, like he was known for these are the words that he says and he goes on and on and on about. 
 13:22: And then you hear those words and people go, well that's come from Lee. 
 13:26: Tick that box, that's comfortable, but it becomes like part of a culture, the language. 
 13:30: My one of late at work, which people have already started when I say it in meetings, they pick up their glass and they go, oh, there we go, is a specificity because too much murkiness and unknownness is going on and I am not down for that sort of thing. 
 13:48: So I'm like if people just know that I'm the guy that wants more specifics, that's all right, because I'm happy with that. 
 13:54: You've not got another one as well about. 
 13:56: I mean, I, I also have, decisive humility and and cautious optimism, but that's more related to AI specificity is just like general life. 
 14:07: What the hell do you want? 
 14:08: Like, someone said, come, I want this project started off, and I was like, why? 
 14:12: What is it? 
 14:14: They, they're like, oh, but it seems cool. 
 14:15: I wanna, I wanna be involved. 
 14:16: I'm like. 
 14:17: Have you thought about this? 
 14:18: Let's have a chat. 
 14:20: And we talked about it, talked about specifics and go, actually we can do that without creating a whole new project. 
 14:24: Are you're gonna save yourself time, it's gonna be great. 
 14:26: And they went, nice one, let's do that. 
 14:28: Specificity. 
 14:29: Hard to say sometimes. 
 14:30: A lot of the time. 
 14:31: I, it makes me wonder if we all have that version of a bingo card that like, maybe we're bringing people joy when it's like, she said all the things. 
 14:42: Our colleagues and teams everywhere. 
 14:44: I actually made a conference bingo card at the conference where I was last week. 
 14:48: The bingo card idea, it helps get a deeper level of listening, and I really like that idea that if I can listen to two things at the same time, I'll pay more attention. 
 15:00: And that also helps me to listen to other people that I sometimes don't agree with. 
 15:05: So if I can find a personal bingo card like, oh, they touched their nose, they said, hey, or whatever, that helps me. 
 15:12: Actually stay on track. 
 15:14: I wonder what my bingo card is. 
 15:15: I do like bingo cards. 
 15:16: I especially like them at networking event where you've got to find people to, who've seen Taylor Swift or who have done a podcast as an example. 
 15:24: I think we've done that game. 
 15:25: I've done at Eurostar, yeah, definitely, yeah. 
 15:29: Yes, and other places as well, but yeah, definitely Eurostar. 
 15:32: It's, it's good for networking because it forces people to. 
 15:36: To try and at least talk to people and all the rest of it, which again is another, I guess socializing with testers, like, it sounds like a bit of a brag and things, but doing podcasts with peers, that brings me joy, listening to different perspectives, being challenged on my perspective at times in a constructive way. 
 15:51: Don't get me wrong, I don't like it when people point their finger at me and yell at me, but by having creative discussions, by discussing ideas, sharing ideas. 
 15:58: It's like I've just probably gonna see if I can borrow Linda's idea there and see whether we bring that to Pierscon this time or next time or whenever. 
 16:06: But those sorts of different things that give people a choice, and some people will like it, but it's not forced. 
 16:13: It allows people to kind of select their joy, select what makes them happy, but you're giving them options, you're not just saying turn up, watch, listen. 
 16:22: You're actually giving alternatives, which generally means something will click, fit, work better for some than others, but it's an experiment. 
 16:29: You're giving people options, which I think is a good way to look at sort of people, teamwork, collaboration, by presenting different things, you're more likely to do something that brings out a little bit of joy to that person, that some people will hate, don't have to engage with it, some people might enjoy and can engage with it, but you give them the options, and I think in teamwork. 
 16:51: I think presenting things with options, the ways that different people can adapt to them is quite good, cos we talk a lot about neurodiversity these days, and we are all, well, a lot of us are different in how we do things and how we think and all the rest of it, so, presenting those things is a great way of enabling people to find those joys in the moments that otherwise. 
 17:09: Could be challenging. 
 17:10: I have to admit, when you first posed the topic, I've had such an uphill battle lately on so many fronts, that I've been so cranky, and I thought, oh my God, I have to think of things that bring me joy. 
 17:20: And immediately I thought of the community of testers that we have, because when I am cranky or I'm feeling isolated, or I'm out of ideas, I always turn back to my community, and they either pull me out of it or make me. 
 17:32: Feel like, nope, it's not just me, I'm not crazy. 
 17:36: My leadership is just like everybody else's leadership, and we're all fighting the same battles, and that has been immensely helpful. 
 17:43: I look back on the first few years of my career where I tried to do it without a community, and I, I don't know how I am still in this career without y'all, so. 
 17:53: I know that feeling, like, a, a lot of Many of us start out in a kind of finding our feet, falling into this sort of testing or landing in it without kind of planning on it and things like that. 
 18:03: It's evolved and it's changed. 
 18:04: I think the percentage is reducing that does that these days, but I think it makes quite a big effort, I guess, to the community, and it's probably certainly personally why I care about giving back to it so much because I know when I'm starting out like you, I felt very isolated. 
 18:20: I was the only tester in my company. 
 18:21: I was the first tester in my company. 
 18:23: I had never tested before, even then. 
 18:25: So everything was a discovery, and so the only the community, reading the blogs, going to the conferences, speaking to different people, doing some training on it were the only ways I can actually grow and if it hadn't been for the community and hadn't been for things like ministry testing and other places out there, I would have struggled to have learned anything and would have been just fighting to survive. 
 18:49: So it did bring me joy in a way that I didn't even realize at the time. 
 18:52: And the growth, I've always felt like I can't. 
 18:55: I, I become stagnant too quickly in something, then I get kind of down in the dumps about it. 
 19:00: I love learning new things. 
 19:02: It's one of the reasons I joined the STEM field to begin with, was to always be learning something new and not stuck doing the same thing every day, and having that resource to somebody to hand over their blog or going to a conference and learning what people are doing brand new. 
 19:18: Those are the moments that I remember. 
 19:20: Yeah, I really do like doing this, and this is actually really fun every day. 
 19:23: I start in. 
 19:25: wasn't as lonely as Russell's. 
 19:26: I'm so sorry that you had to do all that alone. 
 19:29: OK, we all have different journeys. 
 19:31: the, the only community I had at the time were my colleagues and the colleagues at the assignment where I was sent to. 
 19:36: And that still is a very narrow perspective that you didn't have. 
 19:41: And there's, there's not many people that you can interact with or find help. 
 19:46: And the person that actually got me into testing, Jordis Mertz, is also the person that got me to my first un conference, the dude. 
 19:54: That's No longer being organized right now and kind of hoping it'll turn into a zombie and stand up and walk again soon. 
 20:00: Who knows? 
 20:01: But that opened up a world of contacts and people that I still converse with about problems that I find, and the more I step into community space, the more I find value in it. 
 20:12: So, when I teach trainees now, one of the things I start with is, look, there's this whole community here. 
 20:19: You can go here and there and there, go these people, there's this. 
 20:24: Conference, go to frogs. 
 20:25: If you can get to England, go to Pearcecom, actively building on that community that gives so much back, that also brings me much joy. 
 20:34: It's a lot of like finding your people, finding somewhere where you belong, finding people who you can resonate with, but also bounce ideas off and have a bit of accountability and challenge. 
 20:43: All those things are wonderful and in many ways, that's a more difficult puzzle to solve than a lot of the logical things that we face when we actually just get to get down in the code. 
 20:53: But there are moments I can remember working on an automation project and there was a particular precondition for a phase. 
 21:01: I was testing smart meters at the time and, and I wanted just to check that I got the logic correct on something because it was, it had to be like a specific time of year, specific time zone, specific conditions had to be met, and it was like, how many nested preconditions can I get in place? 
 21:17: And someone was like, just write a really long script where you're basically copy. 
 21:21: Hasting and I was like, no, there is a way. 
 21:24: And I can even remember, you know, when sometimes you get so into it and you're like, I'm gonna get this done. 
 21:28: I'm gonna get this done and someone comes in. 
 21:29: What about if you do this? 
 21:30: You're like, no, no backseat drivers. 
 21:32: Leave me alone. 
 21:33: I've gotta just do it. 
 21:34: And I sort of focus, focus. 
 21:37: About half an hour, 45 minutes, I cracked it. 
 21:39: Run through, debugged it, got it sorted, and I was, and there was no one else in the room because obviously I, I tell people to leave me alone, and they just go, yes, and it was a wonderful moment. 
 21:49: That is the entire reason that I got into programming to begin with, was that I solved the puzzle and I made it work moments. 
 22:00: I love it more than just about anything else, and you're right, when somebody comes in and tries to like pointed out at you, you're like, let me do it. 
 22:10: Just don't touch my stuff. 
 22:11: Let me figure out. 
 22:12: Have you thought about this? 
 22:13: No, obviously I haven't thought about that super obvious thing. 
 22:16: Thanks, mate. 
 22:17: And my sister, who is not a technical person, didn't even own a computer until a couple of years ago, used to come up in college and go, why is that missing a semicolon? 
 22:28: All the other lines have it. 
 22:29: And I'm like, I hate you, go away. 
 22:32: Let me solve the puzzle. 
 22:34: Secretly that you are, thank God. 
 22:37: Yeah, well, you know, after 23 hours. 
 22:39: Now, as a more mature adult, I go, hey, come look at this and tell me if anything jumps out at you. 
 22:47: Before I spend 2 hours wondering why it's not working. 
 22:50: Code blindness is a real thing. 
 22:52: If you stare at the same screen for long enough, you can't see out what's in front of you. 
 22:55: That brings you back to community stuff though, cause then you meet people to sanity check. 
 22:58: I mean, I literally like sometimes call up people and go, look. 
 23:01: I don't know if I've been taking like something crazy, like inducing it inside of me. 
 23:07: I just need to understand, here's the context, here's what's, this is how I feel. 
 23:12: Is it rational or or have I got myself just in a moment where I need to go and take a walk or something or or or is this valid and I need. 
 23:19: To sometimes check those things because while, you know, I've got a reasonably good gut for things, it is wrong sometimes and I need that sort of sanity check with another human just to make sure that I. 
 23:30: But a key point on that, another human. 
 23:33: I'm conscious that some people are now using AI to do those sanity checks with and. 
 23:37: Humans can be wrong too. 
 23:38: Yeah, positive reinforcement. 
 23:39: What a, what a great idea. 
 23:41: Oh, that's such a smart thing. 
 23:42: Here's why so clever. 
 23:44: Drive off the, yes, drive off the cliff. 
 23:46: Why not? 
 23:47: There'll be a gland somewhere. 
 23:48: Yeah. 
 23:48: So one of the first companies I ever worked at, used to give us all on orientation day a rubber duck because they were like, do not bother your colleagues until you've talked to the duck. 
 24:00: And when you're, you know, 20 years old and somebody hands you a duck and you're like, I'm sorry. 
 24:07: Explain, but it's that that process of trying to figure it out, and when you do, the joy that comes from it. 
 24:14: I absolutely love RCA too, which I don't know many people in the testing sphere that do. 
 24:22: But it's that like, I found a bug, and I found why it's a bug, and, and I feel complete now and you can do whatever you want with that information, but I did it, I found it. 
 24:31: I, I do like root cause. 
 24:32: I do cos understanding root causes, you can actually prevent more often similar errors, similar patterns reoccurring. 
 24:40: So I guess it's the way of describing something like finding a problem at the interface level. 
 24:44: It's like, well, why'd they get there and. 
 24:46: If I can prevent a problem, it is better if I can coach someone or if I could explain a reason why something isn't good because it was done deliberately, perhaps, you know, in error, not aware, like accessibility is a classic one, where people don't know about it, therefore they make mistakes, then you point it out at the end and you're like, well, If I'd just given you some coaching up front, we could have prevented you building it, me breaking it, or me finding errors and then telling you you've not done it right. 
 25:11: Much better if I had just sat down with you and explained some of the criteria needed for accessibility that I'm going to test for, and then you'd build it to pass that, rather than you just building it and then saying, yeah, see if it's accessible, and if you can actually help someone prevent error, for want of a better word, there's a satisfaction, there is a joy that comes out of that cos. 
 25:30: That's a lesson that person will put forward for a lot of time and lots of other things of software that you've helped reduce errors in the future. 
 25:38: But yeah, for me, accessibility is a classic one of that, giving people more an awareness, and I don't know if you've ever done these things, but have you ever done sort of a workshop where you actually experience what it's like to be disabled in terms of like wearing funky glasses. 
 25:52: Everyone here but me's got glasses on, but where you've got severe eyesight issues and you've got tunnel vision and different color, different things. 
 25:59: I just have to take off my glasses. 
 26:01: Yeah, you can't see, yeah, fair enough, but like using screen readers, using all these tools and actually use them because it's amazing the different experience that you get and if you close your eyes and try to navigate around a website. 
 26:12: It's incredibly easy to see how frustrating it gets so quickly just because you didn't put a label or an alternative or made the tapping order sensible and so on. 
 26:21: I recently had to move my mouse to my other hand because my right hand was injured and it had a splint and it was very difficult to move my fingers with the splint. 
 26:32: That was the goal of the splint, so very successful, but then I needed the mouse with my other hand. 
 26:38: I was so slow. 
 26:41: Oh my God, clicking everywhere and not getting the right thing. 
 26:44: I, I can't double click with left apparently. 
 26:47: What? 
 26:48: Why? 
 26:49: I would rather keyboard navigate. 
 26:51: I did have a job in college where they didn't give us mice, and you learned very quickly when software was not built to like tab through a form. 
 27:00: Well, if you're doing data entry, most people will end up using the keyboard and tabbing rather than go back and forth between. 
 27:07: mice and other things, absolutely. 
 27:09: So like working in accountancy where you quit invoices and so on, yeah. 
 27:12: As someone who's actually done data entry work before I became a tester, you don't touch the mouse, it slows you down. 
 27:19: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it does. 
 27:21: I, I get, I got ridiculous speeds. 
 27:24: It's, yeah, and we were, we were on quotas, so, you know, you had to go fast, but when, when you tab and all of a sudden it goes from the 1st field to the 12th. 
 27:34: You kind of automatically reach back over to the mouse to go back where you wanna be and you're like, I don't even have a mouse, and it made me really appreciate. 
 27:44: Man, all of my forms were correct. 
 27:46: It's one of the first things I test when I do UI tests now, like. 
 27:51: All of those things are top of my, I don't even care if it accepts numbers yet. 
 27:55: I want to know if I could tap through the screen. 
 27:57: Can I just go through it, yeah. 
 27:58: But you know, if you help people understand that and they experience it, that the satisfaction, there's joy that kind of behold there, the eye of the beholder, because I know that I've made people with eyesight difficulties and other things' lives easier in their software. 
 28:11: You know, don't get me wrong, there's laws on some of this, certainly in the UK, but I know of many places that. 
 28:18: Understand the law, but are willing to deprioritize that testing, which is fine, it's a choice that a decision that everyone has to make, but if I can teach the developers what's right, so that actually there's no effort, everyone's a winner. 
 28:33: And that's kind of often the way I look at these things, that if I can prevent the errors from happening. 
 28:39: Then the efficiency is through the roof. 
 28:41: And if I see myself as a software tester, my job is to make the end product better. 
 28:46: So coaching is often the better way of doing that than bug reports, to be quite blunt. 
 28:52: I have a fun story from the early days in my career where I found much joy in finding bugs, but I failed in teaching the developers. 
 29:02: We were in this open office plan and there's a row of 6 desks with testers and behind us, there's a row of 6 desks with developers and 2 of those developers were great. 
 29:14: This is fine. 
 29:15: You don't really need to test this. 
 29:18: Everything works. 
 29:19: We've already looked at it. 
 29:20: And I was like, well, then I will prove that it, that it works and nothing worked. 
 29:25: But every time I found a new book, I got more and more happy, and when I'm happy, I'm quite vocal, and they got so distraught by me being, oh my God, another one, that they actually applied and got a glass wall between us. 
 29:44: Oh, that is amazing. 
 29:46: I love that. 
 29:46: That's what I need to do to get away from developers. 
 29:48: Right, good to know. 
 29:49: A glass wall though, interesting. 
 29:51: But you know, it is interesting as, as a, as a fellow. 
 29:55: Who actually uses left-handed devices. 
 29:58: I have a left-handed ergonomic mouse here and welcome to the club. 
 30:02: We all like to left click rather than right click. 
 30:04: It's a very special place to be. 
 30:05: But it got, it got me thinking about how I've been quite a facetious tester down the years and like I've joined companies and they've said, what, what computer would you like? 
 30:13: And I'd say, what's, what's everyone else got? 
 30:15: And they'd tell me and then I'd go, I'll have the other thing then you know I quite often voted when I tested computer games to take the minimum specification PC. 
 30:24: Because I was gonna experience things in a different way to other people, intentionally doing something awkward, and it got me, I learned this week there's a, a terminology called friction maxing. 
 30:39: Yeah, two Xs because 2026, yo. 
 30:44: and there there's different, there's different versions of it. 
 30:47: Some people say it's being, being a bit lazy and what have you, but. 
 30:50: The version I like is it's talking about intentionally choosing to do a task the hard way rather than the easy way, so you're actually giving yourself the satisfaction of learning, of understanding how things are put together, how things work, and in this kind of world in which we are living where things can be more automated, where things can be passed off to, Our best friend Mr. 
 31:15: Chat GPT or whatever, there is a, a bit of joy that can be taken away from us from actually learning how stuff is done, that, that process, that light bulb moment, that thing, that creative thing that gets us going, when we're sort of prodding and probing and uncovering and fixing problems. 
 31:33: If that's taken away from us, I think that's stealing a little bit of joy from us, and I'm not saying let's avoid all these things forever cos frankly we'll get left behind. 
 31:42: But it's still quite fun to try stuff that isn't easy and to learn. 
 31:47: sometimes it doesn't have to be harder. 
 31:49: So I used to, for example, always use Safari browser when I was testing. 
 31:53: Everyone else uses Chrome because Chrome's most popular, blah blah blah. 
 31:55: It's like that's why I use something different because you're all using that, therefore I will find different things to you because 80% of you are doing these things. 
 32:04: But it's still a valid thing. 
 32:05: But at the same time I've also then, I've built, I'm building a car so I can understand how. 
 32:10: Mechanics work and suspensions work and engines work and so on, because sometimes the learning is the important aspect, as you say, so it's, it is. 
 32:19: Bit of everything really, isn't it, but that learning is joyful. 
 32:23: I often don't think about learning as a joyful act, but it is, I, there is something valuable that I get out of the end product. 
 32:31: Often not the exams, often not the tests that go with this sort of thing, or that reading a boring textbook, but depending on how you learn, there's often lots to be doing. 
 32:39: Obviously practical learning, I think is a lot more joyous certainly to me anyway. 
 32:43: I love it, and testing has allowed me to learn. 
 32:48: Such weird off the cuff things that I would never have encountered. 
 32:52: I have helped build industrial fans, and I know all about like static air pressure and air flows. 
 33:00: I worked on heart monitors. 
 33:01: I can read an EKG. 
 33:04: For no reason other than I needed to make sure the software did, so let me learn how, so I know what it's wrong. 
 33:12: I've learned such weird things and I love it, which also makes me really fun to take to like pub quizzes. 
 33:19: So if you ever wanna do, if you ever wanna do trivia Eurostar pub quiz, Chris, we found a new team member down for it. 
 33:26: Here's pop quiz. 
 33:28: Either that or I have to go win Jeopardy or something cause I know useless things for no reason other than I had to test it, and I got really far down the rabbit hole. 
 33:39: Yeah, it brings you joy though, doesn't it, discovering these new things sometimes and the fact that you've picked up these random skills that I live for, you know, surprise people. 
 33:48: Yeah. 
 33:48: Yeah, and more importantly, you could win a quiz, which is the ultimate victory for life and joy. 
 33:54: If you can't win a pub quiz. 
 33:55: I can always stump people on two truths and a lie. 
 33:57: That one's. 
 33:58: And you know, if my heart stops, you can read the monitor to tell me why. 
 34:02: Probably a bit too. 
 34:02: You can read the monitor to tell him that his heart has stopped. 
 34:04: You can just confirm it and be like, yep, he's flatlined. 
 34:09: Might be useful, but never mind. 
 34:11: Is there anything, I was gonna ask, we talked a bit about testing and joy in there. 
 34:14: Is there anything outside of testing, cos sometimes we get a bit too focused on testing, and maybe we should think a little bit wider, broader. 
 34:22: Mental health and doing stuff for mental health, I find, taking a walk. 
 34:28: Sometimes, depending on the mood I'm on, listening to the angry music, whilst I'm in a nice and peaceful, joyful world. 
 34:35: Is something that brings me joy, cos it, it shuts out all the anger and the noise and those sorts of things. 
 34:41: I'm still getting good, healthy, fresh air out in nature and all these sorts of good things, and I come back in, and I'm like, I'm, I'm almost like I've reset my body and my brain, which is joyful, because if I am really cheesed off, which does happen occasionally because sometimes people, myself included, are idiots. 
 35:01: And it's good to step away from that screen where all the idiots exist and just spend a bit of time without screens, sometimes listening to screams. 
 35:11: But out into the open, and that does bring me joy. 
 35:15: I think when I have to step away from testing due to frustration or just being generally stuck on something, I love to fall back on things that give me like an instant gratification moment. 
 35:27: A coloring page or a a meal that I can cook in 20 minutes, or, you know, anything like that where there's like a finished product, because I haven't been able to finish anything at work, so I need to click that button and finish it somewhere else and have that done moment. 
 35:46: I find that I have a really big creative outlet. 
 35:50: I, I play the saxophone, that's my, my main squeeze. 
 35:55: Elmetal de Tor, she's, she's on my, on my, my left here. 
 36:01: but there's many other instruments in my house that I can just pick up and play a little bit, and that always makes me happy and my mental health has not been great the past few days. 
 36:11: I've really been struggling a lot with self-worth issues. 
 36:16: As one does, and yesterday I just picked up my saxophone and I played for an hour. 
 36:22: Only things that I wanted to play that made me feel good, things that connected with how I was feeling and When I put it away, I just felt like my battery was recharged a bit and I could see some light, like, like Russell saw the sun today. 
 36:37: I feel like I can see a bit of Lisa Simpson in, in that sort of moment where you, you get out and just play some of the saxophone together with those things. 
 36:46: That's a beautiful. 
 36:46: Yeah, for me it's, it's gotta be the outdoors as well, so it's probably going somewhere where there's very few people. 
 36:52: There is just the sound of nature and great views. 
 36:55: It could be pouring with rain, or anything else, but it's generally just being out there in the wilderness or being out there a little bit more remotely, not too wild, but up a mountain, up a hill, a bit away from life, I guess, just escapism and. 
 37:09: All the normal problems, your phone going beep doesn't happen because you've got no phone reception and all the rest of it, so you can just detach and sit there and just watch and those moments are quite sort of calming, relieving, joyful, just remind you why you work, you know, you're not working to work, you're working to live. 
 37:31: So yeah. 
 37:32: No, I don't, I can't follow you on the outside thing, that's where the, the bug and the heat and the cold live, Yeah, it's certainly not where the warmth lives where I'm from anyway. 
 37:41: But I do like the calm and peaceful times, just not outside. 
 37:45: Well, if you do it in a car, then you could theoretically stay in a nice warm environment, I guess you just don't just park somewhere looking out onto a nice view, then you could pretend to be in nature, that might work. 
 37:56: I'm OK with that, yeah. 
 37:58: Also naps, naps are great. 
 38:01: More naps, please. 
 38:03: They are a joyful thing. 
 38:05: You know, sleeping in general, it brings me much joy. 
 38:08: Oh, I don't understand that I didn't want to go to bed when I was younger, it's amazing. 
 38:13: Napping is great. 
 38:15: waking up is a nightmare. 
 38:17: Why do you have to are wasted on the youth. 
 38:19: Yeah, now we're showing how young and sprightly we all are. 
 38:23: Burnt out. 
 38:24: The word is burnt out. 
 38:27: All right, well, we would love to hear from you guys about what brings you joy. 
 38:33: So, as a way of wrapping this up, Thank you Linda for joining us on this episode. 
 38:41: And as always, Chris and Russell, it is a pleasure. 
 38:44: If you would like to reach out to any of us, you can find us on LinkedIn or by email at contact us@testing peers.com. 
 38:52: And hopefully we'll see you around. 
 38:58: Goodbye.