Meeting Phil the 'Tester'

My journey to USA started on the day I joined master’s program in computer applications. Each day in college comes with a new learning and many stories of passed batch mates who made it big in the field of IT, traveled across the world especially USA do rounds in the college. I was always interested to know more about people who have traveled to USA, I don’t know why but this is the kind liking to the country I have seen or heard in news only. It took me time to realize the real reason behind this liking and that happened in the year of 2010 when I landed on the New York Airport. This was my first trip to USA and I was anxious and at the same time excited that I have reached the country where I always wanted to be.

It was a long 8hrs wait in New York for my next flight to Austin…yes Austin, Texas…cowboy state. I was planned to meet ‘Phil McNeely’ there who is supposed to train me on product Vacationrentals. I had no idea about him except I had talked to him couple of times over phone…his voice was heavy over the phone.

On the cold Monday morning of January I reached office by walking around 2 miles (care taker of the property where I stayed suggested that office is in walk-able distance), I was frozen and was cursing myself for not calling a cab, finally I reached office and I was excited as I am going to meet Phil. After sometime there was a huge guy entered in my room and introduced himself as Phil and in the first few minutes of interaction I knew that I am going to have a good time in Austin learning Vacationrentals. Next thing we do is we chalk out a plan on how we are going to spend time in learning, explaining things about the product and services used.

I spent 5 weeks in Austin and it was a memorable time for me, Phil and I used to discuss lot of things about the product, how he has achieved success in testing this product, what are the tough areas, and his perspective about testing. We had lot of healthy discussions where we discuss test strategies, test planning, testing particular requirement, most of the times we agree with each other opinion. Phil is very good in explaining things; he used to draw diagrams to explain the problems and even come up with an incident that happened in real life and relate those incidents with testing. One of the most impressive things about him is that he is very clear about the thing he wants in testing and that leaves no scope of assumptions or mismanagement.

Interaction with Phil is enriching experience, I learned a lot from him about testing, time management, handle pressure and dealing with not so friendly situations that I had not learned in my many years of experience in IT industry. All I can say is thanks to Phil for his support and guidance.