What Happens When The Testers Fail?

I work for a large corporation in a technical field supporting other employees. My colleagues and I work independently, consulting each other if difficulties arise. 

A few years ago, corporate Human Resources became enamored with small-group decision-making techniques and set forth a decree that everyone — about 50,000 employees worldwide — would learn to use them regardless of job function. They created an online tool that required us to go through a series of slides and complete tests about them. Passing was 100%.

The majority of the information was something our group would probably never need; if we did, it would be forgotten due to disuse. My solution was to take and save a screengrab of every slide. The excuse was that I (we) could refer to it if needed in the future, and as a bonus, it ensured a perfect grade on the proficiency tests.

The course was divided into five units, each of which had several sections. It quickly became apparent that the test at the end of each unit had one question for each section. No big deal. I aced everything — I thought.

Units 1, 2, 3, and 5 were relatively short, and I got each question correct, so four 100s. Section 4, though, was a royal pain. It had seven sections and took over two and a half hours to plow through. Although I got every question right (we had instant feedback after answering each), the final result showed that I only had two out of seven correct. 

I contacted the HR team responsible for the course, assuming this was a bug that they would acknowledge and fix. Spoiler alert: no.

They would not believe me, essentially accusing me of lying to avoid doing the work. They wouldn’t even admit the obvious correlation of one question to one section. Ultimately, I had to sit through the same section again.

Since I already had the slides from the first time, I could leave the course running while I did the job I was paid for. On the final test, I again got each question correct, and again, the reported result was two out of seven. This time, though, I had captured an image of each correct answer, which I put into a document and sent back to HR. I pointed out that I had wasted two and a half hours of my work day again and that they should listen to employees when they report an issue.

I never heard back, but I didn’t have to do the unit a third time.