Steps to become a better software tester - can do these over a period of time - Part 4

In previous posts, I have been talking about how a tester can continually improve their expertise, gaining a good reputation as a skilled tester (something that is likely to help the tester both professionally and in terms of career climb). I will continue with more topics in this post, and if you reading these articles, I hope that this helps you a lot in your effort to become a better tester. If there are any specific experiences that you want to contribute, please put them in the comments, and I will get in touch with you for more details.
- Always do testing with an open mind. You may have had experiences with different developers and may have made some judgments about them in terms of which developer is more likely to have defects, which one has lesser defects and better quality of code. However, keep in mind that many of these properties also depend on the situation, and a developer, when faced with a tough time crunch and under a lot of pressure, can tend to make more mistakes than normal. So, do not make any assumptions while doing your testing, and make sure that other people can depend on your testing pass.
- Learn about new technologies, keep ahead of the curve. Over a period of time, there are a number of new technologies that can hit the market, and many of these can become very important in the testing community (one such example has been the use of scripting tools and automation tools to provide an automation testing strategy). If you have shown interest, and learned something about these tools and practices, there is a much higher chance that you will be selected when the group decides to get its feet wet with respect to automation and you would be the spearhead of this effort, which can be good for your career.
- One needs to be level headed, and not get irritated easily. It is seen in many cases that developers can take their own time to fix bugs, and this can irritate a tester (I have seen cases where the tester expresses feelings that their work is of no value since the developer did not even look at some of the defects for weeks altogether). A good tester should not show irritation over such matters, but instead raise the issue in proper forum so that this is seen as a problem with a solution required.