Friday, June 10, 2011

???

I’d like to explain to you that “???” is not a useful QA note. In fact it’s damned irritating, because I have to highlight and delete it, which adds to my keystrokes, and that, my friends, is on the order of Lex Luthor stealing 40 cakes.

You know what else is not a useful QA note? One that is so cryptic that it’s just word salad. I have one up right this very minute that reads “clicked on as saying word.” What does this mean? In what universe does it make some kind of sense? Even when I go into the report and look at the blanks that were left… I have no idea. Perhaps we should get Encyclopedia Brown on the case, because me, I’m on the clue-free bus.

Another one that I hate is one like this: “Cannot understand, could not find this.” REALLY? I thought you just left those blanks in there for fun. Never occurred to me that it might have been because you couldn’t understand them. Thank goodness you thought to leave a note about it, or I’d be really confused.

I sometimes wonder if these MTs were traumatized by cruel, vicious, tyrannical QAs who stood over them with cat o’ nines, demanding that they justify EVERY BLANK EVER with a note. I picture them looking around furtively as they type these notes, tears flowing from their eyes as they type in whatever nonsense is coming my way.

What a tragic image. I must remember to send a card.

The point of all this is that useless QA notes cost you and me money. You expend keystrokes typing them in, I expend keystrokes deleting them; how about if we all agree that QA notes should be coherent, to the point, and not blindingly obvious? This way, we both make more money, and also my rhythm is not disrupted and I remain a fairly well-adjusted person, as opposed to the screaming banshee I become when my rhythm is disrupted.

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