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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. */9 -
There was this one time when a coworker needed to update the Xcode.
IIRC because his Mac mini was low on storage space, the update failed && the Xcode became corrupted.
He found that out when he tried to open the Xcode, at which time he was presented w/ an error akin to:
'Xcode was found to be corrupted && was moved to the Recycle Bin'.
C: 'Good, it belongs there!'.10 -
Years ago we had been developing a game for the handheld consoles. We were very young && inexperienced back then. Some more than others... Version for one of the consoles finally saw the light of day, while the other one was sadly canceled.
The development of that canceled one was very troubled.
One example of that would be the core team during the initial stages of the project. One fairly seasoned programmer... Yes - that's it.
Obviously he needed some help, so... the studio hired interns. Two of them, IIRC. One of the interns was put in charge of the game's multiplayer code.
He was ostensibly doing a good job, as the mode was working. Sure it needed some fixing && some tweaks, but it was there.
That is until it came time to check the platform's requirements by the testers. By the time they got their hands on the documentation, it turned out that the SDK used by the game had become obsolete && was no longer eligible for submission. Once the SDK was updated to a newer version, the multiplayer stopped working for some reason.
The issue was investigated which revealed that the intern who wrote the code had been using functions that were marked as deprecated && were no longer available in the newer SDK, explaining why the mode was FUBAR.
Moral of the story? Pay close attention to:
0. Interns,
1. Platform's requirements,
2. Changelogs,
3. Deprecations.6 -
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. -
At previous company I had a side-task of helping out IT dept. w/ cataloguing of hardware for the testers.
The person previously tasked w/ this chose to use Google Docs, so I had no problems w/ expanding / updating the list.
Later on, a test lead of one of the projects had a bright idea of creating a copy of that list for their project.
After some time he approached me && started bitching about why I am !updating their copy of the list.
His reasoning?
- Because you're the 'list guy'.
- Because I'm asking you nicely to do it.
The exchange had been taking some time, but long story short: I stood my ground && basically told him to fuck off, given how it was _he_ && his team that decided to make a copy of the official list && I was definitely !going to accept the responsibility of additional work due to that choice.
Seriously. The fuck do these people think?
If he were to purchase e.g. an knockoff of an iPhone, the device broke down && he went to the Apple's repair center, they'd tell him to fuck off.
Which would be the right thing to do.
...fucking retards && their logic.
/* Also, it's always fun to watch people being ostensibly polite w/ their 'I'm asking you politely / nicely.' then demanding whatever it is they had been asking about, when they have absolutely no right asking for that thing, making _you_ look like an asshole. */4