At five a.m., Monday morning, the air is already thick with 80-degree “dew” as I begin my commute. Daylight hasn’t yet caught up with my schedule, but the sound of the car horn in my driveway lets me know my cab driver has. By six, the airport is bustling with the typical Monday morning crowd –business jugglers with BlackBerrys, carry-ons, laptops, and lattes in precarious balance; sleepy-eyed Disney families with an early Orlando junket; and Vegas high rollers grabbing a cheap flight to the land of dreams. I fall into line with my fellow lemmings, boarding pass and government-issued ID in hand, selecting the slowest moving queue in the airport. My ID almost always gets a second look, along with the obligatory “Was? Never saw that name before.” At least TSA is a friendly bunch.
I make my way to the gate – B20 – so this trek also doubles as my cardio for the day. An hour later, I am snug in my favorite window seat, the scenes of the city below me, headed to my high-tech job in… yes, Kentucky.
This is my commute. Every week, I do what some would consider a technology reverse commute – leaving Chicago to head for Kentucky. But I know better. While Chicago is my home on the weekends, on Monday through Friday, I take the reins of the rural onshore software testing practice at Galmont Consulting in Lexington.
It’s here at Galmont’s onshore quality assurance facility that the software of some of the world’s largest companies is tested, de-bugged and verified for meticulous quality assurance and performance optimization. Rural onshoring is a growing trend among our clients, who have made the discovery that you don’t have to move 3,000 miles away to save money and that the best and the brightest are not found exclusively in the country’s top 10 cities. On this Monday morning, our office is teeming with activity.
Today is the first day back for our large telecom client project team after two months at the client site in Illinois, training on all critical applications, release processes and procedures. The execution of the monthly regression cycle is going smoothly. We are much more seasoned the second time around.
My attention is drawn to the back of the office, where a team is huddled over the self-paced user training for test automation, evaluating pros and cons of the content and style. They will present their findings to the team as part of our multi-tiered automation training and automation COE development.
The M&M candy dish is empty, which tells me it’s been a busy morning for everyone, and a sugar fix was required. At a nearby desk, I overhear our network administrator on the phone in deep discussion about the telecom client’s VPN connection, ensuring that all security requirements are met on both sides. The geek in me is very happy.
At three in the afternoon, we all gather to talk about our projects, new client announcements, and general information sharing. The camaraderie is evident, and one consultant’s confusion with a test approach is quickly resolved by another’s voice of experience.
Automation is the training topic today. Each meeting, we devote about ten minutes to a snippet of training. Nothing long and drawn out – we are all very busy – just enough to take back to our desks and use. Every day there’s a chance to learn something new or reinforce what is already known – priceless.
Even this late in the afternoon, the air is abuzz with energy. The consultants around the table here in Lexington make up a microcosm of the greater IT community’s education, professionalism, and skills sets. From UNIX billing systems to Bally’s Fitness “Results Center Wall” (think X-box Kinect), this Kentucky team is proud of its consulting portfolio.
To some, it’s a surprise to find a hidden high-tech gem like Galmont in Lexington, Kentucky. But as a QA practice director, I can’t think of a team I’d rather work with anywhere on the planet. On Friday, I will be making my way back to my hometown – Chicago. That’s my reverse commute. Chicago is my home, and I love it, but in my world, Lexington is where the cool toys are. My rewards have less to do with frequent flier miles, and more with frequent client satisfaction.
From my window seat, I look down over rolling hills and the Kentucky River…an hour later, I am again awed by Lake Michigan. Dual citizenship has its perks.
Your website has to be the elcteonric Swiss army knife for this topic.