Watching and Waiting

Erin has informed me that when she tells her high school students that her husband is an engineer, they usually say things like:

"Oh, he must be a big dork" or "I bet he never got a date in college" or "Why would you marry someone so nerdy?"

After she agrees with them on all counts, she tells them that part of my job is to watch TV all day. This is really only partially true. My job is to develop software, and part of that job is testing software. The testing, for me, is the boring part. In any case, her students usually light up at this point, aglow in the thought that a job exists where you watch TV all day. "Your husband is so cool!" and "You're so lucky that God led you to Indiana to find the perfect man to fulfill all your dreams" are usually their next comments.

Today is one of those days where I'm mostly testing and watching. I've been sitting here watching an automated script change channels every five seconds for the past, oh, four hours. So not only am I not actively participating in the process (since we have an automated test tool to change the channels...oh if they can ever get an automated tool to write software...or find someone to do it for a much lower salary...oh wait...), but I don't even get to really watch anything. Just about the time I wake up enough for my eyes to focus, the channel changes. I'm looking for the TV to do anything out of the ordinary, at which point I would scurry through the code praying that the offending software was not written by yours truly. So far so good. The frustrating thing is that right about the time Bob says "The winner of today's showcase is..." -- the channel changes. "The results of the paternity tests are in, and..." -- the channel changes. "State is down by one with two seconds to go. The final shot is up..." -- the channel changes. Not once in ten years have I seen Mr. Rogers get that second shoe on.

The only thing more irritating than the vast wasteland which is network TV in the afternoon is not even being able to watch it long enough to decide that it's not worth watching.

Bret