I am switching careers.
One of the reasons for this is my assumption that the testing community is not a toxic one.
So my question is: can this statement âyour coworkersâŠâ be associated with the testing community mindset?
Am I misled?
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Iâm not sure what youâre asking exactly, but on the statement, my take is that your colleagues may not be your friends, but that doesnât mean you canât be friendly, a team player, easy to work with, have fun and learn from each other⊠but this would be true for any industry.
I changed industries from IT support to Testing and I have to say that testing is a much, much richer community, full of sharing and collaboration, but this is just my experience - I canât speak for the entire community.
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What I mean is that I understand that âfriendâ is strong statement. But I would like to work with âcolleaguesâ , ones who like to work together, share, and collaborate.
I get that feeling from MoT community
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There may definitely be toxic workplaces, however, thereâs a lot of good places to work to!
I have a lot of past coworkers who are now friends and we stay in contact 
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For sure, the statement is one of those that is meant to be triggering - like a lot of those kinds of statements you see people posting on LinkedIn.
It kindâa reminds me of âhustle cultureâ and all that turd, justifying over-working, burning out and stepping over and on top of people to progress your career.
There are plenty of places out there not like this 
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Yes, but this one stuck with me for the past year, mainly for representing the environment where I currently work.
Since I am working hard to change my career path entirely, I was curious about this.
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I do find this confusing. donât know what switching carriers means. Changing jobs?
Some co-workers are friends and other colleagues. Iâm friendly and professional with everyone.
I suspect some people just want to do their job and go home. Thereâs nothing wrong with that as long as they do their job.
My experience of the testing community is only positive.
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Not all workplaces are like that, and if you find work culture like this and you donât like it you can just switch jobs. I like healthy work culture where 1-2 of my colleagues are really close and they are there with me whenever I need them even when I have switched those jobs. Some people prefer to work and doesnât interact much, its up to you what type of work environment you like.
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Career switching for me: to leave a well-established career in one field of work and start a new job in a completely new field.
Something like that. To work what I love not just to âget my money and go homeâ. Since I am a person who likes to work 
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Sure in some companies that mindset might be present where everyone is cold and distanced, but there is another extreme - companies where hanging out with co-workers is almost mandated and it impacts your promotions and such, neither of these extremes is good.
Whatever the type of company you end up working for, you are sure to find at least a couple of people that youâll like, and who will like you in return. I got year-long friendships with people from my past companies and even though I havenât worked together with those in several years weâre still in contact and have really nice long-term friendships.
IT in general has a lot of nice and smart people and since (on average) in this industry people tend to earn a bit more they are in turn more relaxed and easy-going. I donât think you will regret if you move to software testing as your future career, just be respectful and kind and 90% of the people will treat you the same in return. 
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I would rephrase the advice like this:
âDo not let others exploit you. Which is more likely to happen in a toxic environment.â
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I am currently reading a book about the main control substances in our bodies and just finished the chapter on Oxytocin. And as a analogy the author brought up the concept of âDarkâ oxytocin versus âLightâ Oxytocin a la Star Wars. Oxytocin is a substance that we produce when we get human connection or a sense of belonging and it reduces stress, makes us able to see the big picture among plenty of other things. You can produce this when you create a toxic environment by creating a sense of belonging by excluding others, which is a little to common on work places and very common in toxic environments. (Racism and bullying is in fact producing this substance)
My experience, comparing developers and testers is that testers more commonly do activities together with others. Both other testers where we share the problem and help each other to finish the task. Where developers more commonly just focus individually on their thing, and are quicker to say, this team is good, we do good things, but that team over there produce shit that we have to make up for, as in tapping into the dark side. I have seen this in testers too and absolutely worked with developers that does not do this at all, but as such I have found it more common to be in a helpful environment with testers.
I also think as a tester you can easily get to a point where you can interact with the whole of the organisation which will in fact help produce the âlightâ oxytocin over the âdarkâ. So testers have a higher chance to already have a good environment, and you can be an agent of good too.
As for Family vs. Mercenary it is tricky, because as an employee you want to work in a family environment, it is objectively better for your health. But most employers are psychopaths i.e. they will only have your back as long as it serves them so you have to be a little bit of a mercenary. I.e. be friendly to your colleagues and a mercenary to your employer.
One saying I always remember is; Donât let people will get comfortable in the way they treat you
I was told this a long time ago when I managed a team. We had one team member was constantly late. It was seen as âjust the way they wereâ and âoh theyâre always lateâ - but then one day someone said to me that I had created an environment that allowed this person to be continually late. They were comfortable treating me and the rest of the team that way - due to my inaction - which affected everyone elseâs view of me, and flipped my view of the situation entirely.
I have problems with this advice as it lacks context.
The treating can positive or negative. You want to stop some treatments and let other continue.
Its fine to get comfortable with some treatments. It depends. (
)
I get the overall message of your comment. THAT treatment should be stopped.
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Donât get me wrong. I do have a life outside my office, I definitely like to spend my weekends as I like, ect.
I was thinking and talking about interaction with people who work on the same project. Or if you prefer in the same office. For me itâs natural to collaborate, and be friendly and respectful.
My knowledge is not useful if I keep it just for myself, and I like environment where is normal to say " hey, I donât know this, can you show me howâŠ"
@mirza you beeng the urban muth definitely understand this 
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Perhaps a contributing factor to developers more typically using âdark oxytocinâ is that they have much stronger ownership over their work than testers do. I know that when I create stuff outside of testing, I am insistent on me completing my work, and that work reflecting on me. Whereas when I test, I might be protective over tickets Iâve been involved with from the beginning but Iâm much happier to âshareâ and collaborate.
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Hi @layla. Youâre not alone in this. I totally get how you feel because Iâm working in exactly similar group of people where they work in pretty much in their own silos and do not actively start any conversations or discussions about our project. What has demotivated me me lately is my co-tester has never shared her opinions or knowledge about testing while sheâs a senior tester in my team. I tried to raise discussions about testing techniques, heuristics, etc. but these suggestions have always lost in a thread of mixed discussions.
Iâve been with the team for over year and have realized that weâre not just good fit. Iâm ambitious and want to learn and grow more but my colleagues donât. My manager also once said that Iâm the ambitious but others are probably not. They come to work to get money and thatâs it. When I donât see myself with the team in the long run, my solution is to find another workplace where there might be better team for me.
its less about the career you are in and the culture of your company/teamâŠ
remember when you go for an interview, its a two way thing⊠you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you!
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I think it would clear up some of the confusion to point out that you mean âcareerâ, not âcarrierâ. You switch carriers when you change your phone company. You switch careers when you change what you do for a living 
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Well, thank you
I corrected this misleading carrier to âcareerâ.
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