When have your testing super powers helped others in the wild?

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I was taking my mum shopping at Tesco’s and we use the self serve bar code scanner. As we approached 1 corner of the store, the scanner made a loud error noise and showed that it had lost connection. The screen showed an OK button but clicking it did nothing. I then heard lots of other scanners making the same sound in the same area. Cue Super tester! :man_superhero:

I asked my mum to hang on and I walked up and down the store in 2 directions to find exactly how bad the connection problem was, where it reached and what you did to get it operational again. It was clear that it was isolated to this one corner of the store. When you left the affected area the UI just dropped a red banner but still sat there as if it was in an error state. But then the OK button would work. The shoppers were giving up, stressed that they had lost their shopping they had just scanned. So once I cleared up how to workaround the glitch, I told the shoppers around me the zone that was affected and how to workaround it.

I’m interested to know, when have your testing skills become a super power outside work and helped others making you a hero for that moment?

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I like your initiative to debug and help others! I’ve recently run into problems on websites of non-profit organizations where I’m trying to donate or renew my membership. I email them and they shrug and say, try again later, maybe it will work. I haven’t yet volunteered my services as a tester for them, but maybe I should!

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So couple of weeks ago, one of my friend had created his portfolio website and he shared with me for feedback.
However instead of exploring the features, I started testing it and eventually find some issues which I shared with him.
He was kind of surprised as he didn’t expected me to deep dive into website.
But again that was one stuff outside my work where I used my testing skill and I’m glad my skill help them in making their website more better.

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