Recalling that a team member apparently complained to upper management, without telling me, I set a trap to catch the backstabber.  I fixed the wrong calls and generated a corrected load tape, which I began to use, but I kept track of the locations of the wrong calls.

We continued to work hard and I finally managed a customer acceptance test run that was free of errors.  Hell, the team members jumped around and high fived each other.

I then set up a schedule for a formal customer acceptance test.

That evening, I loaded the good customer acceptance test into a computer and keyed in bad units for one of the calls.  I called in Alvin, one of the four programmers who was working for me, and showed him an error that would only appear if I used a test, outside of the customer test set.   I told Alvin, “We won't get caught on this, but I want you to work on it and get it fixed.  You're to tell no one about the problem.”

Alvin assured me that he would work on the problem and that he would tell no one.

The next morning, I loaded the good customer acceptance test into a computer and keyed in bad units for another one of the calls. I called in Betty, another one of the four programmers who was working for me, and showed her a different error that would only appear if I used a test, outside of the customer test set.   I told Betty, “We won't get caught on this, but I want you to work on it and get it fixed.  You're to tell no one about the problem.”

Betty assured me that she would work on the problem and that her lips were sealed.

The same afternoon,  I loaded the good customer acceptance test into a computer and keyed in bad units for yet another one of the calls.  I called in Charlie, yet another one of the four programmers who was working for me, and showed him a different error that would only appear if I used a test, outside of the customer test set.   I told Charlie, “We won't get caught on this, but I want you to work on it and get it fixed.  You're to tell no one about the problem.”

Charlie assured me that he would work on the problem, “In total secrecy.”

Later that same day,  I loaded the good customer acceptance test into a computer and keyed in bad units for yet another one of the calls. I called in Dana, the final one of the four programmers who were working for me, and showed her a different error that would only appear if I used a test, outside of the customer test set.   I told Dana, “We won't get caught on this, but I want you to work on it and get it fixed.  You're to tell no one about the problem.”

Dana assured me that she would work on the problem and report only to me.

I then did a pre-test of the good customer acceptance test program, for my upper management, and they were pleased with the apparently error free test.  I told them, “What you see is the efforts of five hard working programmers.  None of us could have done it alone, each and every one of us contributed.  Also, the hardware support guys and the documentation people contributed necessary efforts.  It was a team effort, with a successful completion that will reflect well on the company.”

The upper management people seemed pleased that I recognized that the product was a team effort, although they said nothing to me.

I then set up a full customer acceptance test, with customer representatives to be in attendance.

The big day arrives and we get everyone in the computer lab for the big test, I load the corrected load tape into the computer and start to run the customer acceptance test.  Things go reasonably well, although there are the government observers who, as usual, profess to see problems that no one else sees.

I point out that the entire test is being video taped and that we can replay any critical scenes.  (That shuts up the worst of the complainers.)

I run the full customer acceptance test and things go reasonably well.  There are no obvious errors and we should get the customer's people to sign off on successful completion of their acceptance test.

Then Alvin prances in and announces, “I want to show you an error in the program.”  He then grins at me, to show how clever his betrayal of me (and the company) is.

One of the Vice Presidents is also smirking at me.

The President of the company is there and he's not at all happy.

I carefully state, “As far as I'm aware there are no errors in the program.  In any case, none have been reported.  I have no idea what it is that Alvin thinks is wrong.”

Alvin smirks at me and announces, “Jason, I'll show you an error in the program, an error that you already know about.”

I turn and ask the customer representatives, “Do you want to see Alvin's little show?”

The customer representatives have no real choice and they say that they do indeed want to see Alvin's show.

Alvin then sits at the console and runs the test that I showed him, when I was using a patched program tape with a wrong units call.

Of course, the test then runs as it's supposed to run, since I have fixed the problem in the customer acceptance test version of the program.

I ask, “Alvin, where is the error that you told us about?”

Alvin snarls, “You tricked me!  I saw an error in the test, yesterday.”  Alvin then stalks out of the area, before I can call the guards to throw him out.

Then Dana sort of slinks in and announces, “I think that I have found an error in the program.”  She then grins at me, to show how cleverly she's handling her betrayal of me.

The same Vice President, who was smirking along with Alvin is now looking everywhere but in my eyes or in customer eyes.

The President of the company is still observing the scene and he's not at all happy.

I carefully state, “As far as I'm aware there are no errors in the program.  In any case, none have been reported.  I have no idea what it is that Dana thinks is wrong.”

Dana announces, “I'll show you an error that I found in the program, an error that you should know about.”

I sigh, turn and ask the customer representatives, “Do you want to see Dana's little show?”

The customer representatives again have no real choice and they say that they do indeed want to see Dana's show.

Dana then sits at the console and runs the test that I showed her, when I was using a patched program tape with a wrong units call.

Of course, the test then runs as it's supposed to run, again since I have also fixed the second problem in the customer acceptance test version of the program.

I ask, “Dana, where is the error that you told us about?”

Dana says, “I don't understand.  I found the error yesterday.  I saw a completely different result from what I now see.”  Dana then sort of slinks out of the room.

I sigh and ask, “Are there any more supposed errors to be reported?”

No one steps forward.

I tell the people, “That concludes the customer acceptance test demo run.  If there are specific claims of test failures, we can review the video playback of the test.”

There are a couple of guys who want to view specific parts of the test video.  (To my surprise, a couple of the senior military officers also stay to watch the replay.)  We replay the key times, within the test, and the supposed test failures are not seen, even when we rerun the key parts of the test several times.  We wrap up the customer acceptance test, with the general idea that the military command's people will buy off on successful completion of the test.

(The two senior officers stay, after the other guys leave.)  One of the senior officers asks me, “Jason, what was the two two programmers challenging the test all about?”

I tell the officer, “I don't know what possessed them to do it, but either they go or I go.”

The officer says, “We're considering a follow on contract, given the work that your team has done.”

I tell the officer, “I would be delighted to bid on additional work.  However, I won't work with people who want to stab me in the back, especially in front of customers.”

The officer asks, “How do you intend to approach the problem?”

“I'll talk with my management here and find out if they want me or the backstabbers.  If they want me, I'll replace the backstabbers.”

The officer says, “As I said, we're considering a follow on contract, given the work that your team has done.  I'll have the Commanding Officer discuss the matter with your management.”

I say, “Okay, I'll wait a bit, before I talk with my management about the problem.”

I think the entire matter over and arrive at a conclusion as to how Alvin will handle things.  I set things up and then call in Alvin and I ask him, “You came into a customer acceptance test, made false claims, false claims that could have prevented the customer from accepting the software that an entire team worked very hard to deliver.  Why did you do that?”

Alvin snarls, “You showed me an error in the project software and I wasn't gonna let you deliver software with a known error in it.”

I ask Alvin, “You tell me that I showed you a known error in the project software.  Why did I show you a known error in the software?”

Alvin snarls, “You told me to fix the error and it was a trap!”

I calmly ask Alvin, “You claim that I showed you an error in the project software, when there was no error.  If you thought that there was an error, did you try to fix the error, that you claim that I told you about?”

Alvin says, “There wasn't time for me to do that.  Then, you could have blamed me for failure to fix the error.  I wasn't gonna let you get away with that!”

I then calmly state, “To defend yourself against some imagined attack, by me, you decided to perhaps destroy the project.  Why do you think that I was against you?  I openly published a progress report, day by day.  Your successes were reported, as were the successes of each of the project members.  Do you claim that I under reported your successes or reported your successes as achieved by another project member?”

Alvin snarls, “I aint gonna talk to you, liar!”  With that, Alvin gets up and goes to the door.  He yanks the door open and stands face to face with a security guard.”