In our ‘Testers ideas flow’ blog posts we collect the most active discussions in different communities about everything connected to software testing.
So you don’t need to subscribe to dozens of groups and channels – everything the most important is here. Follow the Software Testing Talks Facebook group and r/softwaretestingtalks Reddit community to get our weekly discussions lists directly to your feed.
Briefly, here is what folks were talking about during the last week:
💡 Mental health in IT – how are you all doing still?
💡 Did you get hired with zero experience as a QA in Software Testing?
💡 Anyone else’s team fail to read your bug reports?
💡 “The second job” anti-remote argument
💡 Lack of gray areas wrt automation for testing
Let’s dive deeper into the most interesting opinions.
I would like to start from a very important topic that raises periodically in tech communities and every time triggers a lot of comments, different opinions, and stories. As a person who coped with total burnout and professional apathy at one point and found emergency help in psychotherapy, I always follow these discussions with the greatest interest.
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Mental health in IT – how are you all doing still?
Hey all, this post is a bit off topic and will contain somewhat of a rant and/or dump of thoughts with the goal to see how others are doing and perhaps just better reflect on my situation. My apologies in advance as I do not know what this will become as I type out my thoughts.
I work in a small hospital as a Network/Server Admin and have worked here for 5 years starting at helpdesk. The job itself isn’t awful but I do not have further growth and have been looking elsewhere for the past 1.5 years or so, desperately so the past year simply due to wanting more, frustration with others I work with, and frankly tired of defending Windows 10/Network from being blamed in the manner I have to simply with how our EMR is deployed (as always, more to this but I will spare you).
Despite the global pandemic, as well as living out somewhat in the sticks, I consider myself very lucky in terms of job availability the past year, and have gotten multiple offers. However, all of these have not offered my salary requirements of 80k/year and a Network Engineer role (after a very recent market adjustment, I make roughly 73k after on-call pay included; I mention the title as well because 2 offers straight out degraded the role during the offer to a Network Admin with the same/less pay). Despite my role at my organization, my skills/career goals are more geared towards networking and my on-prem-only sysadmin skills are high-mid level.
The past 6 months however, my mental health has taken a severe hit. I feel empty driving into work every single day, and do not begin feel better until I am walking out. A husk all day. Aside from that, job availability (understandably so) the past few months has taken another hit and I’ve hardly had an opportunity to apply anywhere let alone get an interview. I have a CCNA (failed my CCNP ENCOR November 2020, more on this shortly), good Windows/Server experience, Firewall experience, and in the past drive to self learn.
However, I am stuck. I am “done” mentally with work and need to get out, but can’t due to lack of job opportunities in my area lately (I just moved into my house 2 years ago and really enjoy where I live, and am not willing to move). In the past I would come home and study for my CCNP, Python, Linux, etc. Lately I simply do not have the drive/discipline to with the focus I used to. Sadly I have a very hard time not thinking while I am studying about wanting to relax, worrying about the knowledge treadmill, on top of hating that I will be going to bed and doing this all over. When I do try to relax and play games, I do not enjoy them and feel guilty for not studying. I still do study, but again not in an optimal way. Again, I feel empty inside even when “relaxing”.
As I type this out, I realize I most likely need therapy to get myself sorted, work will not get any better and I feel very strongly this is the reason I feel the way I do. In terms of career goals, I feel very close to at least passing my ENCOR exam, in which I want to take some time and allow myself to relax. I guess that is my immediate goal. With all of this being said, I’d love to hear how other people are doing in these times as I know those in need sometimes don’t always have someone to vent, and also hear any perspective on my own situation if you took the time to read.
Thank you if you did so.
>> check the discussion in a r/ITCareerQuestions Reddit community.
My favorite answer:
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Automated software testing question: is coding for testing hard?
hi guys! Recently I was recruited as an automated software tester (dunno if this is the right translation), but I only have experience with manual testing, so here’s my question. They told me that I would need to learn how to program and I’m quite terrified about it since I was never good at it and my knowledge in that topic is very low. So, is coding for testing hard? Like, I would need high skills and knowledge to elaborate the test cases? Or it’s not that hard? I would really appreciate your answers and srry for my English mistakes.
>> check the discussion in a r/softwaretesting Reddit community.
My favorite answer:
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Did you get hired with zero experience as a QA in Software Testing?
Were you hired with zero experience or did you have to lie, or how did you just apply without experience and they still gave you the job?
>> check the discussion in a r/softwaretesting Reddit community.
My favorite answer:
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Anyone else’s team fail to read your bug reports?
Just venting and no hard feelings if not allowed. I am constantly answering questions about bugs I find, where the answers are directly in the report. To me, it seems they only read the bug summary.
“Does it work here though?” Yes I noted it as the workaround and in the description that I tested that. “Is this pre-existing or just in this new environment?” it’s noted in both the description and field we use specifically for this determination. “I cannot reproduce.” Did you try [type out steps to reproduce again]? “….oh ya I see it now.”
Does anyone have any advice? I also am open to the concept that maybe it’s my reporting. Do I not consistently provide all details so they don’t bother to read? Is it too much info? Am I alone?
>> check the discussion in a r/QualityAssurance Reddit community.
My favorite answer:
Let’s take a look at some great insights from software testing influencers.
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>> Check discussion under the post here.
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>> Check discussion under the post here.
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>> Check discussion under the post here.
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>> Check discussion under the post here.
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>> Check discussion under the post here.
So now you know what was going on in the software testing community last week. Follow the Software Testers Ideas Flow group on FB and r/softwaretestingtalks on Reddit to get testers’ ideas flow of every week directly to your feed.
Feel free to contact me on Linkedin if you have any suggestions or ideas about Testers’ Ideas Flow blogs. I am always happy to connect with testers and get even more discussions to my feed 🙂
