Do you love Software Testing ?

If you want happiness for an hour...take a nap
If you want happiness for an day...Go for a picnic
If you want happiness for an week...Go on vacation
If you want happiness for a month...Get married :-)
If you want happiness for a year...Inherit wealth
If you want happiness for a lifetime...LEARN TO LOVE WHAT YOU DO.
(Quotes referred from the book- "Management Thoughts for the Family" by Pramod Batra and Vijay Batra)

The above excerpt talks so rightly about true happiness/success lesson out of life. This is something thats applicable for any kind of work that exists in this world. Software testing is no different. Consider the situations-
- A tester is struck with a bug that is not reproducible at all the instances. In order to reproduce the bug he goes through the whole series of steps again and again. A passionate tester in this situation will persevere to find a better alternative and a non-passionate tester is most likely to crib his job.
- As part of a daily routine, a tester has been asked to collect data about test cases executed, bugs logged, etc. A passionate tester will consider this as an integral part of his job and will strive to understand the context and provide as much information as possible to assist with decision making. A non-passionate tester will barely provide the asked information and as usual blame the world for making him do a silly job.
- After discovering a defect, a tester is supposed to write steps to recreate the defect. A Passionate tester will write the steps in such a way to sell his defect and strive to be perfect at Bug advocacy. A non-passionate tester will take this as just another routine job and is most likely to make more mistakes in reporting the defects. (i don’t mean to say that Passionate testers don’t do any mistakes)
- A tester is asked to take handle multiple things. Mostly in the projects when different phases of project life cycle overlaps (e.g. Test case creation overlaps with actual testing of the project), a tester is required to do multiple things at once i.e. test case creation, testing the software, documenting results etc. all at the same time. Passionate testers see this as an opportunity to excel and demonstrate desire for responsibility by effectively managing time and efforts.
- Tester A comes into work and constantly gives suggestions to improve the status quo. Tester B comes into work and just do what he/she is asked to do. No prizes for guessing which tester loves his/her work more than the other.
- A tester gets promoted to a Test leader. Considering that he/she would have ideally tested for past 5-6 or more or less years,he/she starts showing no inclination towards hands-on considering hands-on testing is supposed to be done by Engineers and not leads! Such a situation is very much prevalent in Software testing fraternity. A passionate tester would never lay his hands off testing. He/She will be always on the look out of extra-ordinary, unknown bugs no matter what designation he/she holds.

Such situations and many many other situations clearly demarcate a passionate tester with a non-passionate one i.e. the one who loves his/her job vs. the one who doesn’t.
Passionate testers always have something unique to offer and that may be in terms of their thought process, the way they carry the day-to-day work, their outputs, efficiency, the way they give suggestions and improve things around them tirelessly. Passionate testers are never satisfied with what they achieve and always strive to find unimaginable bugs of high value and priority.
There is only one way out- Love your job or find something that you love doing and happiness/success will be all yours.
Keep testing passionately!