A full time job at a dynamic, growing startup company, along with 3 great (yet intensive) kids, doesn't leave you with too much spare time! However, I do try to enjoy quite a few hobbies when I get the chance.
Besides playing basketball, going to the movies and working out at the gym, I also love to watch trivia game shows. After years of sitting at home and shouting answers at the TV, I even decided to try my own luck on some shows. So I've been on the Israeli versions of "Jeopardy," "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" and even part of the mob in "1 against 100."
One thing I can tell you – it's easier at home than at the television studio! Nevertheless, I wasn't so bad and was able to win some prizes.
Finally, all those years of filling my head with unnecessary, negligible information paid off. And then I realized that the ability to hold so much "trivial" information in my head is what helps me be a good QA or Tech Support person. A good QA/TS person must be "jack of all trades and master of none."
As I wrote in a previous post, QA is about seeing the whole picture. In order to be able to test new features, as well as conduct regression test on old features, one must be acquainted with the entire application.
There is no way to test something without knowing what other parts of the application it affects.
A tech support person is often addressed with all kinds of issues and requests, which always requires thorough investigation and good troubleshooting skills. In order to succeed, he/she needs to be aware of every feature or any part of the application. We don't always know how to fix things, but we must at least know who can fix them.
Developers usually know everything about something, QA and Tech Support must know something about everything, just like in a game show. (Though we don't always have a lifeline. J)
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