A memorable bank holiday weekend

The bank holiday weekend is now in the rearview mirror and there are many reasons why it will be memorable.

Firstly it marked the end of the 4th week of enforced working from home and I never thought it could happen, but I miss my colleagues (just kidding guys, love you really). I miss chatting by the water cooler, getting beat at pool, grabbing a drink after work and even everyone complaining that my lunch stinks (it’s normally Mackerel).

However, it's not all bad. I can chat with the guys on Teams, play virtual pool, have companywide drinks via Zoom and eat what I want for lunch (it’s still normally Mackerel – yes it’s me bulk buying tinned fish)

The other thing is I couldn’t visit my family. Easter Sunday is normally a family meal and I still get an Easter egg from my mum and (weather permitting) sit in my mum's garden playing with the dog.

Instead, we had a video call, I think probably for the first time ever. And I have to say, I’ve been impressed by how tech-savvy my mum and dad have become (or perhaps already were, I just didn’t realise). I still got an Easter egg, which I ate straight away, and I sat in my own garden enjoying what must have been the nicest Easter weekend weather for years!

My mates and I (that’s grammatically correct, but I really want to write me and my mates) would normally have gone to the Lake District for a really gruelling walk/scramble/climb somewhere and had a good few drinks afterwards (purely to rehydrate post exercise) and played cards or beer pong or welly wanging (it’s a thing, google it).

Instead, we had an online poker tournament whilst still rehydrating thoroughly and for the exercise part I went down to the local woods (see picture above), just a few moments’ walk from my door, that shamefully I haven’t explored properly in years – I will, however, be back, I’d forgotten how nice the local countryside is.

So lots of change, but really nothing that a little creativity and technology hasn’t been able to work around so it’s great that everything works as it should, especially when people are using them for the first time, or perhaps using them at volume for the first time.

We all realise that technology is a great enabler and problem solver, helping to connect people like never before but we also know how frustrating it is when things don’t work as they should.

Well along with losing at pool and eating Mackerel at ROQ – a pure-play software testing consultancy – I help clients to ensure their software does work as intended. We have lots of information on our website about how we do that (www.roq.co.uk) for organisations like the UK Home Office, Unilever and Specsavers so please check that out if you are interested in performance, automation, integration or any other flavour of testing.

Otherwise, I hope you had a memorable bank holiday weekend for some really positive reasons – maybe you wanged a welly, drank something hydrating and met up with your mates online?

Let me know.