Tag: Beavis

Doing Admin

Beavis, a software developer, was supposed to be helping out running manual tests since the Testers were behind on their work. That day, he was working at home and posts on Slack that he has “network issues” so was unable to test. He could have picked up some development work instead, but he didn’t bother.

So for his stand-up update, he says he was just doing “general admin” which I reckon meant he was chilling out at home.

A Tester explained to him that when they work at home, they remote onto their work PC, then connect to the test system from there. It’s a bit of a workaround but it’s what everyone does.

Unhappy with this workaround, Beavis decides to log a ticket with our IT Helpdesk.

A few days later, Beavis is supposed to be helping out the Testers, but is working from home again. Yet again, he posts on Slack that there are still “network issues”. A Manager challenges him on it, and he says he has logged a ticket, but it hasn’t been addressed – so he can’t help. The Manager tells him to remote onto his work PC, which is a known workaround.

The next day, for his stand-up update, he said he ended up doing “general admin” again like tidying up his C drive, and he was also doing “personal development”. So completely defying the Manager and other Tester’s advice.

He isn’t the first person to use the “doing admin” excuse. It’s hilarious when you think about it. How can you claim you spent 7.5 hours creating new folders, or sending files to the recycle bin? Even more ridiculous when you have already made that claim in the days prior.

Playing Dumb

Derek always annoyed me when he would play dumb when doing non-programming tasks. So if he was helping Testers by running test cases – they would tell him to open a test case, and he would be like “what software do I use?”, “what do I click now?”, “do I click the Pass button when I’ve finished?”

It just wastes time and frustrates people. I always thought he was being as awkward as possible so they would just tell him not to bother. If he asks all those questions, then it’s just gonna waste a tester’s time. If they are answering questions, then it means they aren’t running test cases. The idea of a developer helping out means there are two people running test cases. But an awkward developer just means there is a developer slowly running test cases whilst supervised by a tester who could have just done the job quickly.

I’m introducing a new character, Beavis; because he always acts dumb, or at least appears oblivious. Also, he has a very Beavis-like laugh.

Beavis was doing the exact same technique. I heard him ask many dumb questions like that. Later, he calls me over to help set something up. I tell him his account doesn’t have enough permissions.

So he logs in with the admin user, goes to the configuration module and then says:

“how do I find my user?”

“click the Find button”

“where is that?”

“In the menu, first button”

he clicks it. A dialog appears. “How do I then find my user? Do I just type in my name?”

“No, you have to type Pi to 10 decimal places!”

I didn’t really say that, but it was hard to keep calm with the questions that are just wasting my time.

He then says “sorry, I’ve never used this program before”. Even though that was clearly a lie.

Beavis and Butthead

I know he hasn’t used it much because he used to work on a completely different software product, but he has used it and was helping a Junior set it up the very next day. But when you have 20+ years of experience in the software industry, how can you not be comfortable using basic features? Many features are intuitive. If you wanted to find some text, it doesn’t matter if it is Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word, Notepad, OneNote, Visual Studio; you would always press Ctrl+F. Want to Save? Look for a “Floppy Disk” icon, or the word “Save”.