Tales from the Night Shift QA - Hot Tub Folliculitis

I have received appreciation for Tales from the Night Shift QA - the Fudge Dragon and Mystery of the Funky Undies, which are admittedly, both really gross stories. Encouraged by your likes is another one of these epic tales. This one is the grossest of all.

Prologue

Every year, the QA Lab would host a company summer party at a nearby manor: a 12-15 bedroom cottage, cafeteria style kitchen, multiple bathrooms, etc. During the first couple of years, I had a lot of fun at the party. However, in the latter years, I found the company at the party to be less enjoyable as there were many occurrences of distasteful behavior.?

One such tale of many, that I only heard second hand accounts of, was when a male tester disrobed completely in front of our female HR. I guess he thought that it was a good idea at the time. I’m sure that some people reading this have a better recollection of this story and can most likely tell it better than I. I encourage you to do so.?

Chapter 1: the beach

The company would rent shuttle buses to take us from the city to the ski village which was about an hour's drive away. There was a corner store near the manor to stock up on beer. Past the corner store was a small bridge that led to a small beach. The manor, which had a rocky waterfront, had a direct line of sight with most of the beach, but there was still a blind spot.

This one year, when I wasn’t enjoying myself at the company party. I entered old man mode, not enjoying the music and the general noise. Suppressing the urge to tell the kids to get off my damn lawn, I went to the corner store for beer, and then I continued on to the beach.

I went to the blind spot with the manor and dug a small fire pit, made the stone crown, collected the dry beach wood and lit a small campfire. A beautiful beach by a river on a nice sunny day with a cold beer in hand and a cute little fire pit at my feet.?

Chapter 2: my crew

For some, my absence from the company party did not go unnoticed. Some of my friends from the night shift started looking for me. It wasn’t really hard for them to find me, they just had to follow the plume of smoke. They came down to my beach and sat by my campfire.

We ranted about work and told war stories about the QA Lab; we talked about Fudge Dragons, Booger Monsters and Mysterious Funky Undies. Some stayed just a little while; others stayed longer.

Chapter 3: the Hot Tub

One of the services offered by the manor was an exterior hot tub. My personal opinion of public hot tubs in general is not very good; I often refer to them as human soup machines. Naturally, I stayed away from the damn thing, and I do remember being vocal on how disgusting that thing was.?

Again, there were second hand stories of inappropriate office behavior.

Chapter 4: human resources

If you’ve read the other Tales from the Night Shift QA, you might have noticed my formula: a prologue - some context to the story - an awkward All QA email sent from HR. This is no exception.

The Monday evening following the office party, I enter work and open my emails as usual. And as these stories go, the All QA email marked as important is waiting for me.

The email reads:

"Dear Employees,

It has come to our attention that the Hot Tub at the Manor was infected with Pseudomonas Folliculitis, also known as Hot Tub Rash.?

We request that any employee that has used the Hot Tub to visit a dermatologist immediately for diagnosis and treatment.

We apologise for the inconvenience this occurs."

To my recollection, this mail did not go viral in the studio. It would have been in bad taste. If you’re one of the people concerned by the following, my apologies. I don’t want to make fun of the personal trauma caused by the event. I only hope that you’ve learned from the experience: Hot Tubs are gross as f*ck!

Epilogue

I worked at that QA lab for a total of five years. I worked on dozens of games, I put in countless hours of overtime and have flagged thousands and thousands of bugs. I’ve witnessed, and admittedly partaken in, some unprofessional office behavior during my years as a functional QA in a dysfunctional QA Lab.

I’ve focused on the weird and the negative while writing these stories. It wasn’t all weird and negative though. A lot of good came from working there: I’ve made many friends at the QA lab, to whom I still speak to today; it is also the place where I acquired and developed my expert QA Ninja skills, which is now a decade long career that I accidentally started; the QA lab also acted as a farm team for all of the other game studios and software development companies in my city. A majority of QAs working in Québec City have gone through the defunct QA lab, which has created this standardized bug writing practices and work philosophy. We wear this like a badge of honor.??

Writing the tales of the Night Shift QA has flooded me with a wave of nostalgia. I have more stories to tell, but since they can’t be developed into tales, I will group the short stories together. Starting in two weeks, I will be publishing Stories of the Night Shift QA. I’m really looking forward to your reactions! Here’s my first short:

Stories From the Nightshift QA: football in an elevator

One year, I was participating in a big game jam with hundreds of participants. One of my teammates introduced me to one of his friends as if I was a local celebrity. Upon hearing my name, that person says: “Jason De Ciccio? Aren’t you the guy that played football in an elevator with the Dev Studio's higher ups?”

Admittedly, I’ve enjoyed pulling off some juvenile and very funny stunts, and then forget the stupid crap that I’ve put people through just to have someone remind me later on. I often reply: “Yeah, that does sound a lot like me.”

When that person said football in an elevator, I became engulfed in the memory.

A few years prior, I was coming in to do my night shift.I entered the elevator that we shared with the Dev Studio. Suddenly a crowd of people entered the lobby, so I held the elevator to allow them in. It was the studio execs with some out of town publisher execs returning to the office after their business supper. There I was, a lowly QA monkey in an elevator full of higher ups, and I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity.

I used my announcement voice, which is double the volume of my regular voice: “May I have your attention please!”

Everyone suddenly stops speaking in the elevator.?

I continue: “My name is Jason De Ciccio, this is Jackass and this is Football in an Elevator.” All eyes were on me. I could read panic in some of them. Then I burst out laughing. I wasn’t really going to tackle the execs on the elevator, but knowing that people anticipated me starting a mosh pit in this enclosed space made me laugh. Then everyone starts laughing: some were nervous laughs and some were honest laughs.

Then I exited the memory, and was again back in the game jam lobby. I looked at the person that I’d just met and replied: “Yup, that was me alright!”

That day, I gave a few people a story to share. The story of how some jackass almost tackled them in an elevator.?

See you in a couple weeks everybody!

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