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Search - "memoir"
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Years ago, I joined a company making games for handheld consoles.
Because a game's audio needs to be tested, too, I connected earphones to the console so that:
0. I wouldn't bother others w/ the sounds coming out of the console.
/* !Everyone wants to hear that crap. */
1. I could hear the sounds better.
PM: * Enters the room. *
Me: * Focused on testing the game. *
PM: * Walks up to me from the side, starts talking. *
Me: * Focused on testing the game. *
PM: * After approx. 30 seconds of complete lack of response from me, kind of irritated, knocks on my desk to get my attention. *
Me: * Take out the earphones. *
Oh, hi, how can I help you?
PM: Haven't you heard a word I said?
Me: Well, no. I am testing the game, including the audio.
PM: You need to pay attention to what's going on around you.
Me: Testing audio is one of my responsibilities. I am using earphones because of the reasons [0-1].
PM: Even still, you just need to pay attention to what's going on around you.
PM: * Finally explains the reason for him bothering me, then goes back to his lair. *
Moral of the story: Fuck being good at what you do && knowing your responsibilities.
When PM wants something from you, you better give him the attention he wants.
/* The expectation being I grow an extra pair of eyes && ears, so that I see the guy coming && am prepared to listen to him whenever he wants something _while_ doing the best job I possibly can. */13 -
There was this one time when we've managed to upload a Debug build to Google Play Store.
On the same day we had to create a new build w/ fixes, have the testers perform smoke tests, then switch to some fairly quick overall tests.
If nothing were to come up during those tests, the build was supposed to be passed over to the submission manager for release.
Things weren't going that smoothly in the beginning, w/ the first two builds being broken in one way or another.
Finally, however, we managed to create a properly working build.
QA hadn't had that much time to test it, but no major problems were identified && given the deadline we had to submit it.
The next workday it turned out that the tester responsible for passing the approved build over to the submission manager gave him the Debug build.
The submission manager none the wiser uploaded that build for release.
Result?
The users who managed to update their game got their save data wiped... sort of.
It looked that way given the Debug build was communicating w/ a different server.
In the aftermath of that situation, we had to repair the damage && upload the correct build as quickly as possible.
Also, ever since then a huge text 'DEBUG' was added to the loading screens of Debug builds to make people very aware of which build they were looking at.
As for any repercussions for the tester responsible for the mess, or the submission manager - I have no idea.
They were both still working there, so at the very least none of them got fired because of this.