Im trying to figure out the mindset of a subset of the class of 'programmer turned manager' who deny testers their rightful equal status alongside programmers.
Testers are still treated as second-class citizens. They get lesser pay, lesser time for their tasks, lesser resources, lesser appreciation, lesser recognition than their programmer colleagues.
Do they think that:
- testing is an easy job
- anyone can do testing
- testing is not technical
- no special skills are required for testing
Is this thinking a result of:
- ignorance
- insecurity
- lack of continuous learning and improvement
- lack of leadership skills
Its been a long time now since the testing industry has achieved a unique identity, a decade since the Agile Manifesto was published, yet people choose to live in the dark ages.
In most workplaces, team parties and dinners are a common feature. It is treated as a team-building activity and rightly so. Informal settings usually relax people, make them lose inhibitions thus forging closer bonds.
But what if such events are used to divide the team rather than unite them? Is that possible? Ofcourse it is.
*Organize a picnic and send the mail to the programmers of the team.
The testers will come to know about it anyways. They will feel left-out and 'not part of the gang'.
*Or on the eve of a release, when the entire team has slugged it out, take the programmers out for dinner, to appreciate their hard work!
Can you imagine how the tester feels then? Demoralized, unwanted.
Wondering if this behavior is intentional or is the manager just following the footsteps of his predecessors?
It wont be surprising if the programmers of such a team, treat testers in a similar manner when they become managers. Because this is the training that they have received and they are not interested in questioning it either.
Is there something that we, the testers can do about it? For one, we could atleast start voicing about this to the concerned people, in this case, the manager. That is what I shall do too!
