Favorite Moments from the Office

      Several years ago, I was doing beta test on a new release of the Frame base die generation software - part of the CBA (Cell Based Array) tools that SIARC, a company that Synopsys had acquired, was getting ready to release. I was the Manager of CBA training, but when not running or writing classes, i.e., when Siemons was taking a breather, I also wrote or proofed the user manual and beta-tested the software for the various tools.
     
      I can break any tool you give me - which is why I am very good at this. Tell me how it is supposed to work --- I will check that it works that way and tell you if it doesn't.
     
      Companies like to Beta test in-house rather than with a customer, although they do find it necessary to Alpha and Beta test outside given that so few people inside can run the tools with any expertise. Testing in-house saves embarrassment, after all.
     
      Who better to Beta test than the person who has to stand up periodically in front of a group of sometimes hostile (male chauvinists hate woman instructors) fellow engineers and tell them how to do their job, ie. How to actually use the design tool. Effectively. First time success.
     
      So there I was, charging along, testing, filing bug reports, and suddenly the design engineer, a young cute one, who I thought I was getting along with just fine, came running up to me after about 5 bug reports had been filed that one day. So far.
     
      He said that I was being "very hard" on him. It must be because I "came out of the defense and space industry".
     
      I batted my not-so-long aging eyelashes and looked askance.

      What do you mean? I asked in all innocence.

      By this time there was a crowd. I was, after all, a relatively new-hire.
     
      "You actually expect the software to work!" he replied, exasperated.
     
      It has become one of my favorite moments.