Beta Testers
I had been called into her office and I thought surely this was it, she was firing my team. See I worked at a very peculiar company. InBeta. All of the tech teams were siloed. Our whole leadership team was women which was unusual in our world. My team was myself and two other guys. We didn't really think leadership liked us. They were always demanding and hard on us. So consider me shocked when she opened her mouth.
"Tim, we're so proud of the work your team has accomplished."
"Oh?!"
"Yes, in fact, we think we're finally ready to move ahead to Beta testing the headsets."
My face must've shown my confusion...
"Oh right, well the neuro mapping work your team has been working on is being applied to our headset technology."
Now here's the thing, my team had no idea what the practical purpose of our work was going to be and now here it was...
"Oh great!"
"Yes it is great Tim! I'm proud of you. And we're so proud that we'd love to give your team first crack at testing the product."
"Don't we have like QA people for that?"
"Tim this is a privilege, I mean I'm sure I can tell your team that you turned down the opportunity that includes a bonus and additional time off, but I don't think they'll be happy with you."
"Oh sorry Ava, I didn't mean to seem ungrateful..."
"Good, then inform your team, they may have the rest of the day off. Then I'd like you to head to testing room 3. One of the beta managers will meet you there"
"You got it Ava!"
This was great, my team was thrilled. We hadn't had time off in months!