One of the things our vehicle simulator trains users to do is back up to a trailer or load so it can be attached to the tractor cab. This, of course, requires the use of a 'virtual' person on the ground to guide the vehicle back with hand signals. Fairly straight forward stuff, right?
A week or so ago, we received a bug in JIRA from the 'lead' tester for the project. Apparently the simulated guide was using the wrong hand for his signals. According to the requirements, he should use his right hand, and the tester was claiming he was using his left.
In fact, he went on to claim, the guide was using correct hand when driving towards him, but apparently in the process of turning the vehicle around, he switched to the other hand. Helpful screenshots were attached.
So... we have a room full of engineers in our iteration planning meeting, staring at these screenshots. For a full 30 seconds, silence reigned...
"He does understand how mirrors work, right?", asked the lead, as he typed, 'Works as designed, because mirrors' and bounced the issue back to test.
The next morning, the issue was back in our queue, with the comment of, "It doesn't work that way on my truck"
A groan echoed through the room. This was the same truck that he'd used to determine that our implementation of an Allison Heavy-Duty transmission was incorrect, claiming that he had one (he does not, I looked it up). Several people face-palmed, and one engineer started to laugh nervously. This was going to be one of those cases.
"What the actual...", the lead sighed and started typing again. "Go find a mirror and check it, this works correctly", and kicked the issue back.
A few hours later I see the tester in question stalking the cubical farm, and ask him who he is looking for. He replies that he is looking for a mirror, to which I direct him to the rest room. "No, that mirror is broken..."
"What do you mean?", I ask.
"It shows the wrong hand!"
"...", my brain refuses to parse the statement for several seconds, "I... don't know what to say. Good luck?"
I hear later that he did finally find a mirror, and spent several hours dragging various people into a meeting room to test how a mirror works. He apparently got somewhat pissy about it, and even accused one person of swapping the hand his watch was on when he wasn't looking.
On the up side, he did finally, grudgingly, close the case. Of course, when he did so, he closed it as 'cannot reproduce' and commented that we'd 'fixed it with the latest software'.