I have seen some really blunt testers in my IT career. Blunt as in, if they have a problem they’ll make sure they let people know of it and that too in a most undiplomatic way.

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Some of the commonly heard statements are:

• “Why can’t we ever get the application in time into testing?”
• “Why can’t he (developer) just fix this without breaking something else?”
• “We will not continue testing unless fixes this P1 issue.”

…and some really ruder than these.

What makes me wonder is:
– are testers born like that?
– is being blunt one of their personality traits? and
– do they really like behaving like this?

One of the reason I think for doing this is to get heard.

Whatever the reason for doing this is but one thing is for sure that this creates an uncomfortable working environment for everyone – developers, analysts, testers, managers and anyone else involved. There are other better ways of making yourself heard. And one of them is to earn that credibility. Once you’ve achieved that, it is relatively easy to make your point and it does not put anyone in a tensed situation.

So what do you think? Does this happen at your work place? Do you think being direct is the only way to get heard?