Some of the brokeness in this world comes from software and if we testers won't take the time to point it out who will? It time to shift the culture of tech. It's time to stop treating humans like...
This world is a broken place. I recently read an article in my local newspaper about parents who lost their son to a drug overdose. The article was posted on Facebook and to read through the comments was hearwrenching. There were several other parents from my town that posted about how the healthcare system had failed them and their families and how they too had lost children to mental health and addictions.
When I read something like that I start to wonder. There is so much brokeness and hurt in our world. There are so many systems that are broken and we are all struggling in our own ways, but what am I doing to help? I have my comfortable life doing my comfortable job, but am I really making a difference? Is this world a better place because of what I do? Am I clawing back at the brokeness at least in some tiny way?
The answer is supposed to be, that by helping get better software into the world, I’m making a difference, and I suppose that is true. But we’ve all felt the weight of the current cultural momen that we are in. Is it enough?
I know I’m not responsible to solve the world’s problem. I know I can’t do it on my own. I know there will always be more that can be done, but how do I connect my work to something more? I don’t talk about it much on this blog, but I am a religious person, and so I do believe that we have a purpose in being here. We were made to do something. Part of that is to make this world a better place.
I’m not ready to give up this thing I love called software testing. I find it facinating. I love what I do and I want to keep doing it.
I just want to comit myself again to doing it with purpose.
I don’t do this to just move up in my career or to make more money. I do this to make life better for a few people. I do this because it brings me joy, and helps make me a better person. I do this because it’s a way to shake my fist at the darkness and brokeness in the world. I do this to cast a glimmer of light. Maybe together we can make a million glimmers of light and change something.
I want to see a world where people aren’t annoyed by software bugs, but also a world where software improves people’s lives. I don’t just want to ensure that we build it in the right way, but also that we build the right thing.
I don’t want to just find bugs (although I do still want to do that). I want to promote ethical software. I want to help people find their own meaning and fun in testing. I want to see us get better at making sofware that acutally enhances people’s lives. Not just better adoption or more users or even higher customer satisfaction ratings. Software that truly makes lives better.
Some of the brokeness in this world comes from software and if we testers won’t take the time to point it out who will? It time to shift the culture of tech. It’s time to stop treating humans like they are data points in our algorithims and instead start treating them like, I don’t know, complex beings with thought, desires, loves and hates. It’s time to do something different.
I don’t know – maybe this article is just therapy for me, but I want to see something different. I don’t know exactly what that is yet, but it’s time to explore it.
Photo by Marianna Smiley on Unsplash
