My job is basically to break things: whichever app I'm testing but also the will to live of whichever developer coded whatever thing I just broke. I usually find success in both of the areas by doing things a typical end-user would never think of. Random, out of order, nonsensical things. As tough as it is to admit, a drunken toddler would make for an excellent tester.
Being someone that "works on computers" I constantly have friends, relatives, people in the checkout line at Wegmans, asking for help with their computers. I find this incredibly annoying. Not because of the interruption (well, not entirely), but because 10 times out of 10 it's something the person could have figured out themselves if they only bothered to try.
It's easier for that person to take 5 minutes out of my day than to waste 10 minutes of theirs. And that bugs me. Most people seem to missing that 'can-do' spirit (I know you're cringing as you read that phrase, but trust me, my cringe is ten times more cringier from writing it). There's no pride in accomplishing something. In learning a new nugget of information. If there's no cheese waiting for them at the end of that maze, they'd rather not walk it. Let someone else do the dance.
My wife is this way with anything technology-related. I cannot stand it. If I'm around, she's completely helpless. "How do you flip on that there picture box?" That sort of thing. When I'm not around, and she's left on her own? It's amazing the things she figures out. You'd think she'd have some pride in that, but you could not be more wrong.
It was always an annoyance, but now that we have kids I find it troubling. Even if that's the way our society has shifted (and make no mistake, it has), I don't want my kids thinking that's the norm. Flames shooting out of your keyboard? Good luck, kiddo. You got this! That's the attitude I intend to take with them. Our lives are nothing but a serious of increasingly more difficult problems. Learning how to deal with, and solve those problems is about the most valuable skill a person can have. One I'm hellbent on instilling in my kids, wife's terrible attitude be damned.
Because if they've tried something 10 times and it's not working, I want them to believe that the 11th time they'll get it right. Every great accomplishment we've made as a people has come through trial and error. How do you think we put a man on the moon? We shot a bunch of dudes into space, and eventually we nailed our target. Sure, we lost a lot of good men this way. But we also landed on the moon! You can't put a price on that.
So the next time your iPhone freezes, or you can't get your TV to connect to your blu-ray player, don't call your son or daughter or neighbor or your company's "computer guy". Give it a try yourself! Hit some buttons. Plug some wires into different holes. See what happens. And if that fails, use Google. Google literally knows everything. Just leave the rest of us alone.
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