Culture QA: I Break Things

Some thoughts on software and culture

Photo by ThisIsEngineering on Pexels

I live in Italy. Most of you know this. Many of you may not know that I spent seven years of my professional career working in the exciting world of software development, in different capacities as a tech editor, tech writer, topic expert, and for a brief, intense period, QA testing.

We all use software every day to bank, order food, travel, purchase goods and services, order prescriptions, seek initial medical information, and more but do not realize how the proverbial sausage is made. Software is written and sent out into the world by teams of people who may or may not know what they’re doing or whom they’re trying to reach. It is almost a given that the board overseeing the software company will know next to nothing about the actual product or its intended market, seeking instead to milk maximum value from the product, no matter what it is and who buys it. Sometimes the husk of the company is sold. Sometimes the money is rolled into R&D or stock dividends. Sometimes the money from sales is churned back into R&D, but that probably only happens in banner, brand-name alphabet companies.

For a brief period of time in my second software job - at a non-alphabet company - I was placed in charge of managing QA for a new product we were trying to build. I knew a lot about the intended market, and I knew a ton about what we needed the software to do, but all of this had to be translated in intelligible developer-speak for a team of very smart developers who knew less than I did about the intended market or the functionality. To me, the actions and functions that were routine and second nature were total news to the developers. We used, for a frightening early chapter, an Excel spreadsheet to communicate hits and misses in the product development. This quickly became unwieldy. So we moved to a JIRA board, which is a form of torture for anyone who likes to feel a little progress or sense of accomplishment at the end of a workday. “Grooming the JIRA board” sounds like you’re out at some fancy stable full of Arabian thoroughbreds making their hide look clean and shiny with a currycomb, but I assure you it is nothing of the sort. JIRA still makes appearances in my bad dreams from time to time.

QA stands for quality assurance, which also sounds like something it’s not. Maybe it vaguely connotes international banking and finance. Or fine cloth and leather or fashion. None of the above. No, QA in software world means that a tester is meant to “break” - or fail - as many steps in the process as many times and in as many ways as possible. I am no math professor, but the possibilities some days felt infinite.

In this brief period of time as the lead QA tester for the new product, I worked closely with our offshore team based in India. They were up and working for four and a half hours before I woke up. My mornings were spent addressing their questions and concerns. Unlike me, these lovely Indians led by a saint named Padma were educated for the task at hand, well-trained, calm, thoughtful, and logical, and were superb documenters of the software’s weaknesses.

My background in US immigration trained me to follow procedures that were known to function and to guarantee positive results. Erring in the steps would only disadvantage my client, so I was very incentivized to get it right and to make sure my staff got it right too. What a looking glass world it was, then, to be in a situation where I was required to break things, and then document exactly how I broke them so that developers could fix the interface/sequence/logic/steps. I was okay, not great, at “breaking things.” I was pretty dismal at correctly documenting the steps I took before the software “broke” and returned an error or an unexpected result. For me it was more fun to creatively break something quickly, if it really had to be done. But an undocumented software fail was useless to our project, as I quickly learned.

Living outside of the culture of origin feels like software development. I am often trying to figure out what steps to take to achieve a desired outcome while documenting the fails and willfull breaks in the system in order to correct the next time’s behaviour so that the desired outcome actually happens. (There must be a PhD dissertation in here somewhere on psychology and linguistics.) I had a prime example of a cultural QA fail this morning. Activity: driving in Italy. Task: refuel car.

I have been licensed to drive in Italy for 15 months. We purchased a modest, used Fiat Punto Evo with 100,000 km on it, last year after I passed the practical exam. Actually, it’s a little worse for the wear, and might have been a car that had flood damage in the heavy rains that happened in Emilia-Romagna relatively recently. Our car-savvy friend Ric told me this summer to get it sold sooner rather than later because the car is not worth the cost of replacing the timing belt.

To further complicate matters, I am unable to obtain a parking permit to park my car publicly in Florence because our famiglia nucleare already has the sole allowed ZTL (zona traffica limitata, which is what happens in historic cities in Italy, and boy, do they make a pile on people who violate the ZTL and incur fines) permit assigned to Jason’s car, which is almost always parked at his office within the confines of the ZTL. (A different, barely documented process that still costs a monthly subscription to the city of Florence might allow me to fruitlessly seek a free parking space on the viale - the ring road - close to where we live and which is also currently torn up due to the tramvia construction.) All this to say: 1. living in Florence can often feel incredibly complicated for everyone who lives there, not just pale northerners like me, and 2. I haven’t driven the Punto much as a result because it is parked on a hilltop in the northernmost reaches of the Arezzo province, which is not at all close to where we live. And all this results in my not knowing the ways very well of the Fiat Punto Evo, or its associated tasks and maintenance.

This morning I set out to pick up a traveller from the Montevarchi train station, which is a process I have been working on for a month now, given the aforementioned information gaps. I don’t know the turns, I don’t know my car, which unfortunately this morning was almost on empty. Great, I’ll fuel up. How hard can it be? (Disclosure: I have not yet successfully gotten gas on my own in Italy.)

This is where culture and QA meet. (Disclosure: I do have a bit of an anxiety trigger when everything goes sideways, my spoken Italian gets peppered with stuttering mistakes, and I present as utterly un-Italian in almost every setting.)

I pull into the usual gas station where Jason typically fuels his car in less than five minutes. It’s packed. Cars at every pump. Phew, I pull into a pump. O no! DIESEL. I back up into the preceding pump. Two sweaty nonni briefly stop their discussion and look at me, then resume their purtroppo and comunque. Phew, unleaded, here we are! I get out of my car - what the hell, where is the gas cap on this Punto? Oh, other side.

I’ll just pull up and U-turn to the other side on the same pump. Wait, that is not possible. This is a one-way gas station drive-thru, made the more so by the speed at which people are whipping in and out of the plaza from the speedy stradone. Do I have to go back onto the speedy road to come back in? Good grief. In the meantime the nonni have driven away, so I drive the wrong way on the other side of their pump and pull into an unleaded pump on the correct side of the Punto.

Great! Almost there. Plenty of time.

Holding bank card in a sweaty hand, I go to the kiosk to prepay with my card and got through all the touch screen choices without a bump. Even though I maintain that the last bit where they ask you if you want a receipt is confusingly combined with the “start pumping now” green button. An Italian behind me snickered at my obvious relief. I trotted back to my car.

I open the gas cap door - what the hell? It’s locked? The gas cap is locked into my car? I go back and get my car key and jiggle the gas cap for some time. I have never had a gas cap like this before. Closest thing was a black plastic tether on my old Toyota. Maybe in the US thirty years ago no one was afraid that their gas would be stolen. But this is clearly at the forefront of Italian driver minds. That lock was so tight. I finally gave up and asked a new fellow pumper to help me. Not my car, maybe my car, new car, first time, I stuttered. He looked at me and shrugged. Just lock it when you put it back in, he said.

The gas cap fun and resulting intervention took so long though that now the little pump screen read “closed.” What is closed? The pump is in my hand, in the car. I try to see if I missed a button to push. No. I go back to the kiosk, which says my pump is authorized and in use. I go back to the car. The gas won’t pump. What the actual hell. Now I’m pouring sweat and there’s no one else at the gas station.

Oh wait! Here’s a car with another Italian who looks like he might be pulling his pants up while rummaging in the back of his knit red underwear. At this point I am desperate and late for my pickup. Scusi, signore, I say, can you help me? I point at the little screen that read “closed.” You need to pay, he said. I did pay. He shrugs, I don’t know, ask inside. I trot up to the glass door with my gas cap, car key, and credit card in hand, plus my bag, and try first one door, then the other. Now a German tourist in a white BMW is effortlessly pumping gas and watching me. What did I do wrong? Why did it say closed on the pump?

I return to the kiosk and try to annul the operation. But no, the kiosk insists that my card is authorized. But the pump says closed and won’t pump, I cry. At this point I realize I am in a QA scenario and I simply need to prep another set of test data.

I surrender at Pump No. 6, my petroleum Waterloo, get back in the car, and drive it to Pump No. 2, where the German has just successfully filled up.

Back at the payment kiosk I authorize another pump with my same bank card. Now I know I am an expert QA Italy tester, breaking every process that they know well enough, and apparently the Germans too. The best QA tester is a person who, like me in this situation, has no idea what they’re doing wrong and no idea how to get a correct response, given the field behind them littered with failed attempts and little understanding.

Gas cap is off. Car is off. Pump is now authorized to distribute fuel! I pump 40 liters into the Punto - about 10 gallons - and am on my way. Car is full of gas! Total time: about 20 minutes. Temperature: 35 Celsius. Number of Italians encountered: 4. Number of helpful Italians: 1.

A subsequent part of this QA scenario also took place when I drive to Montevarchi. Having missed the turns the last two times, but now armed with experiential knowledge, I told Jason last night the route I took to the station. Maybe turn on your phone navigation? he suggested. Oh right - my phone does that! (This is another neural path that just needs to be reinforced because I am so unused to any of this, after years - years! - of conflicted Not Driving In Italy.) I put in the address before I left the gas station and headed off to Montevarchi, across the Arno, back soaked in sweat. And I had forgotten my water bottle. Fail.

Over the bridge, hello sluggish Arno, oh hello stopped traffic. Traffic is never stopped here. Why is it stopped? I inch inch inch around the normally quick access and see that a garden store is closing for the summer season and selling all their stock at half price. Italians are streaming away from the store with pots of plants and flowers, the flowers bobbing in time with their pace. Italians have also opted to park in the actual street to access said sale plants, hence causing traffic congestion.

I am really growing sick of this QA testing scenario, I think. But what have I learned today that I can use tomorrow? Gas cap locks, payment kiosk is possibly on timer for safety, one-way pump lanes, diesel pump is green. Phone can navigate, kind of. Does gas cap need to remain locked? I wonder. Who in Casale would siphon and steal my gas? Is this a thing?

The phone navigation was either not great or Montevarchi lacks adequate street signage. Probably a combination of both. I missed two turns and found myself on the same roundabout with all the retreating garden traffic and feeling a bit like Chevy Chase in National Lampoon’s European Vacation. “There is it, kids! Big Ben! Parliament!” I exited the roundabout again and made the correct right turn, finally collecting my charge a half hour late.

This isn’t a problem for you? she asked anxiously.

No, no, not at all, I said.

All in a QA culture morning.

What have I learned? Gas cap locks, payment kiosk is possibly on timer for safety, one-way pump lanes, diesel pump is green. Phone can navigate, kind of. Does gas cap need to remain locked? I wonder. I cannot rely on the kindly public to assist me to a successful outcome.

Making notes for next time to run the QA scenario again with slightly different data. Will report back. Groom my JIRA board again and again for updates, is the test still necessary? Surely at some point some of these tests will be passed or discarded.

Surely.

Hail Mary, full of grace, please let me pass some of these Italian Culture tickets in JIRA. Product has been in development for 51 years and our lead QA tester reports workload stress.