QA and Tech Support Jokes

True story from a Novell NetWare SysOp:

Caller:	"Hello, is this Tech Support?"
Tech Rep:	"Yes, it is. How may I help you?"
Caller:	"The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?"
Tech Rep:	"I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?"
Caller:	"Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer."
Tech Rep:	"Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped, it's because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional, at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?"
Caller:	"It came with my computer, I don't know anything about a promotional. It just has '4X' on it."

At this point the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he could not stand it. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder, and snapped it off the drive.

I used to work in a computer store and one day we had a gentleman call in with a smoking power supply. The service rep was having a bit of trouble convincing this guy that he had a hardware problem.

Service Rep:	Sir, something has burned within your power supply.
Customer:	I bet that there is some command that I can put into...
Service Rep:	There is nothing that software can do to help you with...
Customer:	I know that there is something that I can put in... some command... maybe it should go into the CONFIG.SYS.
	[After a few minutes of going round and round.]
Service Rep:	Okay, I am not supposed to tell anyone this but there is a hidden command in some versions of DOS that you can use. I want you to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT and add the last line as C:\DOS\NOSMOKE and reboot your computer.
	[Customer does this.]
Customer:	It is still smoking.
Service Rep:	I guess you'll need to call Microsoft and ask them for a patch for the NOSMOKE.EXE.
	[The customer then hung up. We thought that we had heard the last of this guy but NO . . . he calls back four hours later.]
Service Rep:	Hello Sir, how is your computer?
Customer:	I called Microsoft and they said that my power supply is incompatible with their NOSMOKE.EXE and that I need to get a new power supply. I was wondering when I can have that done and how much it will cost..

(Someone at Microsoft must have been thinking really fast....)

Kids Cook up Next Generation of Computing Concepts
"Image The Magic" Contest Winners Meet Bill Gates

Maybe computers could help a girl with cerebal palsy communicate, detect squirrels before they run under car wheels, or play games with lonely kids.
-MicroBias, June 21, 1996

The articles goes on about how these kids dreamed up these ideas and Bill told them that all these were reasonable and invited them to Microsoft for a day.

Let us consider being the test lead for the middle concept.

Detect squirrels before they run under car wheels

Consider what it would mean to have a bug.
You would have a budget for both computers, cars and squirrels.
Going to conference you would have both a suitcase with your cloths and a animal carrier full of squirrels.

Test 1:

Have a STE drive a car at various speeds while another STE tosses squirrels under car wheels. Of course you realize that squirrels do not run under wheels of cars on demand you must actually toss them. Secondly, to cut cost if the car stops and the squirrel survives then you need to recycle the squirrel and toss him again until a bug is detected. Once there was a bug you would have to enter it into the RAID database:

Assertion Error in squirrel.dll, Squirrel was asserted all over the road. Large squirrel (2 lbs 6 oz.), thrown at slow speed. Michelin tires 155R14 on seventy series corvette with a P120, 32M.

But, like all great products the SDE doesn't believe that the bug exists and it has to be reproduced for the developer. Once reproduced and fixed the checkin suites need to be run before the fix is checked into the source tree. Testers then must resolve the bug.

Automated Test Tools

The Squirrel Tosser for perfect tosses every time.

Bug Bash:

Probable not called a Bug Bash. Imagine this, a dozen Microsoft testers drunk on complementary Bug Bash beer and full on Marriot catered food out in the road tossing squirrels under cars. First five to find a bug get tee shirts. Other side groups ( The Deer and Elk products) come over to help with the bug bash. Imagine the conversation:

"No, No, you have to toss the squirrel underhand, overhand invalidates the tests (and the squirrels)" -Tester #1

"Sorry, we don't toss in our group, we have to push the deer in front of the car, tossing seems much easier" - Guest Tester

"Ya, imagine working for the Elk group" - Tester #1

"Wait till we internationaize and have to do elephants!" - Guest Tester.

Confidently:

Because of the public outrage in killing squirrels, all information about the product would be highly confidently. In every supply room there would be a box, with three slots one for paper, one for CDs, and one for tested squirrels.

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