This month, as you settle in to your comfiest leather armchair for some comfy Christmas shopping (with or without a glass of spiked eggnog), take a moment to thank the most unsung heroes of the Holidays: the IT personnel that support the biggest shopping season for the year.
Photo courtesy of Jonas Smith (Creative Commons)
| For the IT professionals tasked with supporting the sales technology behind nation’s major retailers, the Christmas season means late nights, tight deadlines, and less time with family. And if they do their job well, we won’t even know they did any work at all. |
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. From the familiar chords of festive carols to the warm, smoldering embrace of the Yule log, the holiday season seems to effortlessly channel a magical sense of childlike wonder within us all. No matter how old or jaded you are, the Holiday season manages to transcend the cynicism that seems to be permeating every phase of our lives these days. It’s a time to share with those you hold dearest—and a chance to show them just how much they mean to you.
It truly is the most wonderful time of the year. That is, provided you’re not one of the IT professionals tasked with supporting the sales technology for our nation’s major retailers. For those folks, the Christmas season means late nights, tight deadlines, and less time with family. And if they do their job well, we won’t even know they did any work at all.
That’s because every year, we take one of the most magical parts of the season for granted: the software that powers the busiest shopping season of the year.
Except that “magic” I’m referring to isn’t really magic at all. It’s an impossibly complex, impeccably choreographed ballet—built by the hard work and determination of hundreds of thousands of people—and they sacrifice a lot to make sure our holidays succeed. Every time a package you ordered online arrives at your doorstep, it’s because multiple people have busted their butts to make sure the front-end point-of-sale systems are seamlessly integrated with their company’s back-end warehouse and merchandising systems. Every time you browse your favorite eCommerce site, it’s because that site’s been rigorously load-tested to perform under that kind of stress without crashing. Every time you seamlessly hop from site to site in search of the best deal, it’s because hundreds of software testers did their job.
Yet we only notice when things go wrong. Like when that website crashes, emptying your shopping cart in the process. Or when the cashier has to bust out the old knuckle-buster to run your credit card, turning a 30-second transaction into a five-minute one.
It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, really. As consumers, we’re ever more conditioned to expect software quality in everything we use (which, in effect, is forcing the hand of the marketplace at large to invest in ensuring software quality through all stages of the SDLC); yet, at the same time, we’ve become relatively oblivious to the Herculean task it requires to deliver it. To say these folks are in a thankless position would be a titanic understatement.
So do me a favor this holiday season. While you’re out shopping for the perfect gift, whether you’re carousing through cyberspace or gallivanting across your local mall, take a second to remember the technology that’s helping you do it so easily—and the hard work they’ve put in to make it seem so easy.
Happy Holidays!
Mike Hodge
Lighthouse Technologies, Inc
Software Testing | Quality Assurance Consulting | Oracle EBS Consulting
