The Indian Caption Authority



  • I'm in charge of QA for over-seas developed software at the company where I work.  We typically use companies in India for these kinds of projects.

    One of our products has some short video clips in it.  We asked the software developer to place a line of text under the video for a caption or brief explanatory text, and we would provide them with the text.

    This is what we got instead.



    This was not the only WTF in the project.  Others include captions talking about Frederick Douglass' work as a slave with a background video of a '50s jazz band.

    50% of the software being non-functional aside, this build was even worse than the pre-alpha where the quizzes marked incorrect answers correct, required that you submit each question to be graded individually before you submit the entire quiz to be graded (all using the same "submit" button which appeared on every screen), had audio from a completely different project embedded, would only run on PCs, and had files that were ten times larger than what we were quoted (see The Long Way to India for why this was a problem for me).

    I was given four whole weeks to get through QA on 60 some odd discreet pieces of software, despite my objections that it would take three months to properly check everything.  I was given every assurance that the company in India would be focusing on quality, do their own extensive QA checks, and that every build I would receive would be clean.

    The company in India was three weeks late on the first delivery.  And the products absolutely have to be ready for the big sales convention.

    My team wasn't too happy about having to cancel their birthdays,vacations, and work over the weekend.

    But it's okay - I have received every assurance from my superiors that all the rest of the several hundreds of projects scheduled for the next 16 months will be delivered to me matching the specs perfectly.

    I can hardly wait for the Spanish projects to start.



  • GoDaddy is hiring.



  • You mean they only have to build simple quiz software and they even frak up the answers?

    Let me already help you out a bit on your Spanish project then. Which of the following phrases comes in handy in everyday life?

    a) Joder

    b) Coño

    c) Mierda

    d) Mi <font style="color: navy;">aerodeslizador está lleno de anguilas
    </font>



  • @TGV said:

    You mean they only have to build simple quiz software and they even frak up the answers?

    Let me already help you out a bit on your Spanish project then. Which of the following phrases comes in handy in everyday life?

    a) Joder

    b) Coño

    c) Mierda

    d) Mi <font style="color:navy;">aerodeslizador está lleno de anguilas
    </font>

     

     

     

    <homer>

    ¡Mmmm, anguilas!

    </homer>



  • @da Doctah said:

    <homer>

    ¡Mmmm, anguilas!

    </homer>

    Why would a female poets collective want... oh, I see, carry on.





  • @KrakenLover said:

    My team wasn't too happy about having to cancel their birthdays,vacations, and work over the weekend.

    I wouldn't be too happy, either, if my team leader insisted that I sacrifice my personal life in order to eat a heaping tray of dogshit served up by highly-paid idiots in management and lowly-paid idiots in New Delhi.

    How will your superiors react if, at the end of this abbreviated testing period, you report that the product fails to meet requirements at even a basic level and is unfit to be presented at the sales convention?



  • @Rootbeer said:

    How will your superiors react if, at the end of this abbreviated testing period, you report that the product fails to meet requirements at even a basic level and is unfit to be presented at the sales convention?

    I wonder.

    The thing is, it's not really my department or my direct superiors that sets the schedules - it's Marketing.  They are the ones who have the final say in when a product's development deadline is (in theory they don't have this power, in reality they do).  And they are the ones who said that the products absolutely must be ready for the sales meeting.  They have no idea what goes into creating a product, and I don't think they care.  They probably could sell a "heaping tray of dogshit", so why should they care about what my department has to go through to get it out of the door in time and in good shape?

    I wanted three months, was given four weeks, and now only have 2 weeks.

     



  • @KrakenLover said:

    I wanted three months, was given four weeks, and now only have 2 weeks.

    Is that JUST for QAing, or does that include the cycles between QAing and getting the developers to fix the problems you spotted? Or will there only be one such cycle? ... Or are you just to be finding problems to list in the errata section?



  • @Xyro said:

    @KrakenLover said:
    I wanted three months, was given four weeks, and now only have 2 weeks.
    Is that JUST for QAing, or does that include the cycles between QAing and getting the developers to fix the problems you spotted? Or will there only be one such cycle? ... Or are you just to be finding problems to list in the errata section?
    My schedule starts with pre-alpha, then moves through alpha, beta, then gold and gold master.

    The basic software is developed, then I get the pre-alpha.  Then I QA, send feedback, they make revisions, I get the alpha, QA, send feedback, they make revisions, I get the beta, I QA, and so on, and so on.

    In about two weeks I'm supposed to go from pre-alpha through Gold Master.  Including the time it takes for the developer in India to make corrections and do their own internal QA. There are no errata.  The product is supposed to be "finished" and be perfect when it hits Gold Master.

    On our previous projects, which were smaller and less complicated, it took us about three months to get through the whole cycle, and even then there were still problems with the finished product.



  • @KrakenLover said:

    In about two weeks I'm supposed to go from pre-alpha through Gold Master.

    lol



  • @Xyro said:

    @KrakenLover said:
    In about two weeks I'm supposed to go from pre-alpha through Gold Master.
    lol
    Thank you for your sympathy.


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