We Don’t Know What A Baguette Party Is, But We Want In

I work as a developer for “personalized accounting software”. Part of my job is to test the new code I just wrote. Today, I am assigned to work on a bug for a big bakery chain in the Netherlands. It involves the invoice system. 

I find the bug, patch it all up, and start testing. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but somehow the feature “test as live” is on. This feature is always off, and this is the first time I did not check it. So, as you can expect…

The bakery first gets an invoice for 666 spoons.

The bakery then gets an invoice for one tomato bagel.

The bakery then gets an invoice assigned to Mr. B. R. Ead (B. R. Ood).

The bakery then gets an invoice for several items for a Baguette Party

Since I’m on a roll, I test the system about thirty times, before my manager hurries to me. He asks me what I’m doing and for how long, while he has his phone ready. I explain it and he turns to the phone. 

Manager: “Yeah, all is well. My developer is testing things. You may ignore all the invoices from the past hour.”

I look confused, and my manager points to that dreaded checkbox. My manager is laughing with whoever is on the other side of the line while I turn beet-red. 

Turns out the bakery thought it was funny and, “Ah, things like that can happen,” and you can rest assured that I will triple-check if that box is on from now on. 

The worst thing is that I sometimes shop there. I’m too ashamed to return, even if they don’t know it was me.