S4E7 - Simon Prior
This week’s More Than Work Podcast guest Simon Prior is a Senior Test Manager at easyJet, a podcasters and a neurodiversity advocate, and he is rocking it at all three. He is based in the UK and joined the podcast from Buckinghamshire.
Simon started as a developer but ended up finding breaking things to be more the more exciting pursuit and thus started his career in QA. He promotes the importance of testing and has a strong opinion on automation. For those in software, you know this is an oft talked about subject.
On his podcast. Testing Peers, Simon and three other testing professionals talk about QA and leadership. They are also trying to encouraging the teaching of QA testing in universities. Check out their hashtag, #makeatester.
Simon has overcome burnout and shared his own personal story of collapsing from stress at one point. After that he made some changes in where he worked including choosing his work place based on how it aligns with his personal values. Like many, he is still finding balance.
As a neurodiversity advocate, Simon takes the opportunity to educate others at his workplace on things like how to interview in a more inclusive way and even how to make the airport experience more inclusive.
Note from Rabiah (Host):
Simon and I first connected on LinkedIn after he responded to a post and not long after following him, I knew he was the real deal. It was refreshing to talk to someone who loves what they do but who also sees how he can make an impact to improve the lives of others. We have some similarities in that he is an advocate for a cause that impacts people he knows. For him that is his sister and son. For me, that is…me. I enjoyed our chat and can’t wait for you to hear it.
Simon and Rabiah have a great chat from leafy Buckinghamshire to Camden respectively.
Transcript
Rabiah (Host): [00:04:13] Welcome to More Than Work, the podcast reminding you that your self worth is defined by more than your job title. I'm Rabiah an IT Project Manager, Comedian, Nonprofit Volunteer and sometimes activist. Every week, I'll chat with a guest about pursuing passions outside of work or creating meaningful opportunities inside the workplace.
As you listen, I hope you'll be inspired to do the same. Here we go.
I had a cold during a certain week and I recorded two episodes. So this is the second of my "stuffy nose series", I guess. I hope it's not an annual podcast series, but we never know. So, I think I mentioned on the last episode, I'm trying to revamp things a little bit, add some sound and change how I do this intro. And I'm going to really make an effort not to share the [00:05:13] entire podcast in the intro like I'd been doing. I got feedback, basically.
I knew, I knew I had ways to improve, but it wasn't until I realized someone else noticed it, that I'm doing it. And it was nice. It was nice to get feedback. It was nice to react maturely to that feedback. I've have a tendency to not always act maturely to feedback in some situations. So I, I feel like, uh, there's some growth there, you know? But one thing we talked about in this episode, the guest, Simon Prior, is a QA analyst for EasyJet, for a travel company. And some people, if you're not familiar with software or even what the term QA means, you might not know, but, a very important part of the software development process is QA because if you don't test- and it's something people try to avoid on projects- but if you don't test, you're not going to uncover bugs and they're going to be live. And what that means is your end users are going to see problems. They might not be able to transact on your website, et cetera.; As a consumer, some of you guys might [00:06:13] go on websites to buy something and you'll notice some error and something that prevents you for doing what you want. That's about. That means either QA didn't catch it or they probably didn't have QA is, is likely.
So we talked a lot about QA and why it's important and it's kind of fun for me just because, well, you'll see, I'm not going to tell you. You have to listen for about five minutes. You'll know. What I like with Simon is he's an advocate for people and you'll hear about that, but it just really made me really think again about the idea that all of us can make an impact on a cause that's important. Or even to people who are important. Maybe there's just someone that you haven't reached out to in a while because you know they were going through a difficult situation. And so how you can make an impact with them is actually just reaching out. It's just your time and maybe being a little uncomfortable, you know, but that's making a difference.
There can be other things where like, there's a, cause you, you want to have an impact on or the community. So you find what's within your means and [00:07:13] ability and you pursue it. And there's always that risk, that vulnerability, of maybe doing something new or meeting new people, or maybe going into something where you don't know what it's all about, but it's really important
I think that all of us, when we have something that we want to do, we, we go do it. And so Simon stands up for a certain group of people and he approaches it through education, policy in his workplace and other communications and you'll hear all about that. But I was thinking, if you can look at like time, maybe you can contribute time, money, maybe you are good at writing policy.
I'm doing that whole program I've talked about on here, the Public Leadership Credential, so that I can be handy with policy. But I just wanna encourage everyone to think about when you're listening to assignment and areas he's making an impact on maybe what areas you can do that in as well. If that's what you want to do.
If not, um, maybe just share the episode since that's something you can do, that'll help me out. We also talk about [00:08:13] pursuing work or actually in his case, companies that reflect your values. A lot of us work in corporate jobs that aren't really what our life is all about, but you can still make sure that where you're working reflects your values and you'll know you're not aligned because it's just not going to feel good a lot of the time. So empowering yourself to do that first via knowing your values, maybe assess what your values are. I actually want to redo this cause I did this probably a year and a half ago, and I think I need to assess it again and see if I'm really living within mine. This podcast is part of me reflecting my values because I feel like it is positive and helping people. And I have heard that from others. So I did get that feedback. But I think it's really great to assess your values and we talk a little bit about that. And then to find places or organizations, or even people that do that, it doesn't mean always finding people who agree with you, or you have the same exact stance on everything on, but just having people [00:09:13] around you and in your community that you share values with so you're not just completely inauthentic every time you're out and about or talking to people or even going to work. So I think I'll leave it there. That's a good summary of what I'm hoping people get out of this episode. What I'm trying to do is just say things to watch out for. I'd love to hear from you and what you get out of it,
if you get anything out of it. So you can email me at more than work pod at gmail dot com (morethanworkpod@gmail.com), or you can go on social media. You can find me in a lot of places. Thank you for listening. I really appreciate you being here and here's the episode.
Rabiah (Host): Welcome back everyone today or it's really tonight. But I like to tell you sometimes when I'm recording. It's nighttime here and both of us are in the UK. It's Simon Prior. He's a senior test manager at Easyjet, a podcast host and a neurodiversity advocate. So he's basically challenging me for the number of titles [00:10:13] someone can have at once.
So Simon, how are you doing?
Simon Prior: I'm good. Thank you.
Rabiah (Host): Good. So what part of the UK are you in?
Simon Prior: I'm in a town called Ellsbury, which is just north of London in leaf leafy, Buckinghamshire. So
Rabiah (Host): Oh, nice. All right. Yeah. So a little bit, yeah, it's less leafy here in the middle of Camden, but so how, how are you doing right now? I mean, You're at Easyjet, so you're at an airline.
Simon Prior: Yeah. Working for an airline during a pandemic has definitely been interesting. Quite challenging at times, but yeah, no, it's good. Now we seem to be coming to the other side and ramping up the teams again and hiring and positive, positive vibes everywhere. So yeah, it's a nicer place to be now than it was six to seven months ago.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, I can imagine. So you're a senior test manager, meaning a QA person.
Simon Prior: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): So for those who don't do software, which a lot of people listen to just kind of they're my colleagues, but can you describe your, your job in IT?
Simon Prior: Yeah. So, I started in development like 12, 14 years [00:11:13] ago and moved into testing. I moved into testing because I was in a team of developers that all had 15 years experience. And there was me as a graduate, so I never got anywhere near the code. So I started picking up some of the test tasks and I thought I'll try and break your code instead of being writing it.
So I went down that route instead, and actually found I enjoyed the element of trying to improve the software by finding all the issues and defects before we release it to customers and then get loads of bad reviews everywhere. So, yeah, it's just become a passion really that I'm there to, me and my teams are there to ensure the right level of quality in what we're releasing by testing it, by asking questions, by challenging the status quo with the decisions that people are making from a requirements perspective and just trying to make sure it's the right level of quality for our customers to be happy with.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, that's cool. I mean, I've done QA a little bit, but more just as an end user. Like there's no one else doing QA kind of thing. And I've found that when I'm just a project manager, not doing QA, I would get super annoyed at QA for finding things. [00:12:13] in a And then I would get super annoyed at them if they found nothing.
So I'd be like, all right, I have to go test now. Cause you guys found absolutely nothing. There's a problem. But then this huge satisfaction in doing the QA part and finding something. So just as one person at a complex relationship with the QA people. So how do you, I just, I'm curious about how you deal with that?
I'm not interviewing you for a job.
Simon Prior: no, no.
Rabiah (Host): I think being in a position that's really difficult, how, how do you do that and find satisfaction?
Simon Prior: It's an interesting one because I've had some really challenging, humbling conversations with PMs in the past where they've gone we're not having testers involved at the start of a project. No way we haven't got the money for that. You can only get involved for the last month. That's when you do your testing.
And I'm like, let us involve, let us get involved at the start. We can help make the product better, and having to have those discussions. So it's, it does sometimes feel like you're wading through treacle to get people, to listen to the idea of, testing doesn't have to happen at the end. It can happen all the way through.
But yeah, it's it, persuasion is definitely a big part of the role and being able to [00:13:13] articulate why and how and what we need to do. And not just be about writing a load of tests and telling you whether it's past,
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Because you have to do a lot of interpreting depending on how well they wrote the requirements. So , you're so passionate about it though, that you actually have a podcast called Testing Peers Podcast
Simon Prior: That's right? Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): So I'd like to hear about that. I mean, I've, I've listened to it, but can you just tell people?
Simon Prior: Yeah, so, the concept started about three, four years ago. One of the other cohost Chris at a conference, a testing conference called UK Star in London and he, he sort of kept in touch and then he suddenly sent out a WhatsApp to about 10 or 12 people about three, four months later, um saying. lot of us working testing,
we feel quite isolated and our companies. There's no one around to challenge us from a testing perspective. How about we set up this accountability group that we sort of share ideas with each other and bounce things off each other? And we, we started with a WhatsApp group, then it become a slack. And there was about 12 or 15 [00:14:13] of us, but only four of us were really quite active.
And we started talking about, well, maybe we should do something with all our sort of knowledge and share button, you know, give back to the community of testers and stuff. So we, we started looking at doing a blog and then we're like, everyone does blogs. so let's do a podcast. And now everyone does podcasts, but it was an idea of let's let's start something and see how it goes.
The other guys weren't quite as passionate about it as I was to start with, but about three, four months after we'd started discussing it, we're like, well, let's just try it. Let's put an episode out. So May, 2020, we started it. It's all about testing and leadership. We're all test managers or test leaders in different areas of the country.
Two of them are in consultancy companies. One works for a test tool vendor. And then there's me working for EasyJet. So, we've got a mix of different career paths. And so yeah, it's, it's just really all our experience with a bit of light, light banter in it as well If we can do that. And, and just talking about leadership, mental health testing, anything we think we can give back and will help people really, [00:15:13] from our experiences.
Rabiah (Host): Well and people who are in certain parts of software engineering aren't known to be the most social people generally,
Simon Prior: That's very true.
Rabiah (Host): And, yeah. And just, but you seem to have found a way to create a sense of community. And how has that just impacted you and even in your work, by having this thing outside of the.
Simon Prior: Yeah. it's been incredible because they have become like three of my best friends. We talk every day over Slack or, or over WhatsApp or what have you. It's it's given, you know, when things are tough, like, you know, working in an airline during a pandemic where you thinking I'm going to lose my job. It's, it's, it's a channel to, to talk to people that understand the industry.
So when you're frustrated with the fact that people aren't getting what we need to do with the testing perspective in a project, you've got people that are like, yeah, I feel your pain. Have you thought about trying this? And there is a big, wider community. There's there's things like the Ministry of Testing, which is a very [00:16:13] well-known testing community with thousands of testers all over the world.
And, there's a lot of people that are wanting to share their knowledge, but just having the Testing Peers group has been like a small little group that we've been able to sort of share ideas and stuff. We've even started putting things on a, we've got an, "I said no" channel now on our Slack where we actually turned down opportunities to speak or do things because we're trying to keep our ability to do too much within check within the testing world.
So it's yeah, it's, it's, it's really good to keep us accountable to each other and make sure we're doing the right things.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. And what about as far as the podcast, have you seen like, just has anyone written to you and said, oh, thanks for doing this episode or this helped me or that kind of thing?
Simon Prior: Yeah, we've had a couple. We did one on burnout a few months ago which actually got a lot of feedback saying, thank you, you know, you, you know, you, you're talking about things that I've done and I've experienced them, the things and again, on some of the testing topics as well. We've done one on project testing involved at staff projects and [00:17:13] things like exploratory testing and test automation as well. That was a big topic and people come back going, yeah, you're right, you know, you look on LinkedIn and everyone thinks test automation, or you have to automate everything, but actually really real life is not like that.
And thank you for sharing your ideas. So, yeah,
I mean, we, we don't get, I don't know what it's like with your podcasts, but we don't get as much interaction as we'd like through comments and stuff on LinkedIn and Twitter, but you know, the ones we do get are usually pretty positive and, and thanking us and, and giving us some feedback, which we can then use to improve.
Absolutely. I mean, I'm on the feedback question, I mean, for me too. I wish I had more interaction with because I really, you know, I think I say it and I think you guys do too, like go to our Twitter. I know you guys mentioned like go to our Twitter and comment on this or whatever. I don't, but then I will hear from that one person that just completely makes the difference for me.
Yeah, absolutely agree. It's that one person that comes back. Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. So it's really nice. The subject of [00:18:13] burnout, that's an interesting one. I wrote an article on burnout, I guess, I guess earlier this year, it seems like a long time ago. And, and I completely, I have done that. I've had that experience and you've had that experience too, right, of just completely,
Simon Prior: Yeah, I did. I've I've I've, I've heard it a couple of times. The first time, I was working for big cybersecurity company and I had a team in India and a team in the U S at a team in Ireland, and I was working
14 hour days to keep in touch with everyone, traveling to Ireland once a month to go and be with the team that I'd literally just set up.
Hired graduates from Ireland to try and build this test team. And I was literally checking my phone during the night, you know, to answer calls and answer emails. And, you know, panicking if I don't answer straight away, you know, there's going to be implications that, et cetera, et cetera, not realizing that the expectation was then set because I was answering those emails at two in the there. Oh, Simon will answer at two in the morning, we can send them anytime and he'll answer. I became very disconnected from my wife and the kids. [00:19:13] My oldest was three at the time. My youngest was like four months, six months.
And then one morning I woke up, I was sat at the table and I just collapsed my head, hit the table on the floor, hit, had hit the table on the way down.
It was in A&E all day. And they said it was stress that caused it. And so my boss at the time who still one of the best bosses I've ever had was like, take two weeks off, just sort yourself out. Just, just take some time. We've got everything. Don't worry about thing. And it gave me some time to reflect on what do I actually want? Where do I want to go? What are my values? Are we, am I still sort of meeting my values as far as what I'm trying to do with day to day? And yeah, it, it changed me completely. I stepped back from a lot of the stuff I was doing internally that was sort of not work-related, but for the company and decided to stick to just my role and focus on my team and, and shut down a lot of the avenues that I was at the time doing externally. And yeah, I eventually six months later I decided to leave because I felt that my, my values wouldn't be a map [00:20:13] and I moved on and So it's been, it's been tricky and then pandemic hit with EasyJet and burnout happened again from sitting at your laptop all day long in 10 hours of meetings and not moving and not being healthy, not eating properly.
And Yeah.
it's, it was a, it was a fun few months earlier this year, or end of last year.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, well, it was just a weird... and you were going into the office before the pandemic or no?
Simon Prior: Yeah. Yeah.
It was three, four days a week in the office before the pandemic. And then now it's one to two days a week now we're out of it again. So,
Rabiah (Host): Okay. Yeah, that's an interesting thing too, because I think a lot of people... I was always remote, I mean, for the last five years, so... what changed though, what I noticed was like at the clients and stuff, they were online more. So it was, you know, their commuting time and stuff gave you a break in a way and they weren't doing it.
And all of a sudden they were kind of working these longer days and expecting us. And it's like, well, [00:21:13] I've already sorted out my balance issues. But, but even for us too, we ended up a lot of us ended up working like crazy hours during different times. And it was funny because right when I published my article, I, the next week I kind of broke down a little bit and I was like, oh, what are you doing?
Like go read your article, you know? And did you feel like you were able to handle the burnout better the second time just having been
Simon Prior: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I, I was, I sort of took on some sort of therapy a year and a half ago to try and help me with some sort of confidence issues I had from a previous role as well, i, where I lost all my confidence in my ability. So I was in therapy and she would, my, my therapist was really helpful with it.
She's like, it's really important that you find a way to separate between work and home, even if you're. In the same building. And that was something I was really struggling with because the commute was the compression, compression time between work and home or, or getting ready for work in the morning.
You'd listen to music, listen to podcasts. You had that break. And suddenly you go from that [00:22:13] to not having your 45 minute, an hour commute each way and trying to work out, you know, and literally just I say bye to the kids and then I opened the office door and go in and start work. It's it's there's no, no. transition. And you just end up either being sat at the office desk for longer, or you carry your work mobile around with you in the house, and you're checking your emails when you're sat with the kids and it just, yeah, it, it wasn't great, but I did start to put things in place, like adding breaks to my calendar, to give me some downtime.
And deliberately leaving my phone in the office, shutting my laptop lid when I leave it and not going back to it. It's not always possible, but at least if I can do that four or 5, 4, 4 days a week out of the five or three days a week out of the five, then it gives me, it gives me some downtime in the evenings, at least.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, it's just setting those boundaries somehow. I was in a studio for most of the time, until about a month and a half ago, and that it really took a lot, but it was also that same thing of that laptop gets put away. I use my laptop for my stuff [00:23:13] cause a lot of people have one...
Simon Prior: yeah.
Rabiah (Host): you know, it's important.
So no, that's good that you figured that out and then. Your ability to help. But I think people listening should know that this is a normal thing that
Simon Prior: Absolutely agree. Yeah, definitely.
Rabiah (Host): know, cause I think a lot of people just beat themselves up like, oh, I should be handling this better. I don't have COVID I'm lucky.
Well, whatever, you know?
Simon Prior: Yeah, yeah. You're right. It's normalizing it for everyone. Everyone's everyone's experienced a tough 18 months, two years. And have just dealt with it in different ways. Yeah, it's, it's accepting that and being free to talk about it as well and not feeling like you're, you're, you're doing disservice by talking about it.
Rabiah (Host): Well, yeah. Now the transition out is interesting. How's returning to the office been for you?
Simon Prior: It was weird. It start because the first time I went back in, I was like, I'm not going to get any work done today cause everyone just wants to say hi and meet for coffee, which is great. It's great to socialize again. But you know, at that stage, you're still a bit wary. Everyone's still wearing masks. Everyone's elbow bumping rather than shaking hands or, or, or whatever. And it's. Like, I'm not sure. I want to [00:24:13] spend this much time in this close vicinity and they they'd done it so the desks were separated a bit more than they were before and limited capacities in meeting rooms. But it, it still felt very strange being around that many people.
But now it's kind of got back into a normal rhythm and, you know, you don't have so many social coffees other than the ones you plan to do. There's no, you actually get some work done as well. So it's not too bad now. It's nice for a change to be in one day a week at the moment. So.
Rabiah (Host): yeah, it gets you out.
Simon Prior: Absolutely.
Rabiah (Host): So one episode that I really, that resonated with me on your podcast, and I want to talk about your podcast because I really do like it and I think especially people in the tech industry would because especially QA, I don't think QA gets much of a shout and I do, despite my sounding, like I don't like QA, I really do. I think it's the most important thing because once a bug's out there... like anyone who develops an app for the Apple app store and they push [00:25:13] a bug out, they know how devastating it is because they might have that bug for awhile. So
Simon Prior: The timeframe to get an app release in is a pretty, pretty long from my understanding.
Rabiah (Host): it is. So, you did an episode though on one-to-one meetings and the importance of, of those and if anyone doesn't know what I mean, it's like the meeting between you and your boss if you're from the states or here, they'll say line manager more often, but... and what resonated with me with that was because my current boss has a meeting with me every week so that's great. And my previous boss did. But then I know a bunch of other ones just we'll cancel them. And you guys mentioned people just canceling , . Cause the boss has nothing to say. So I just think there's no, no reason for a touch base and they don't even know that that's hurting the employees.
And so that kind of subject and just having that emotional intelligence around it. First of all, how do you guys come up with the subjects you talk about, but second of all, what do you think has made you [00:26:13] want to talk about those things versus just your tech stuff?
Simon Prior: Yeah, I think when we set it up, we were like, this needs to be about leadership and as well as. Sort of testing. So, we all had experience of, of being leaders and managing teams, and we've done quite a few on hiring and onboarding and training up new members of the team. But we have a Trello board it's probably got about 70 or 80 topics on it now that we, we try and prioritize every week. We record every Wednesday or most Wednesdays. I think we were quite consistent recording every week while the pandemic was still on. But now world's opened up a bit more sporadic when we actually record on the Wednesday. But we have a trailer board and every week we prioritize the next two or three weeks ahead.
So, we plan two or three weeks what we're going to record. And then we release every two weeks. So we do tend to have a backlog of about three or four episodes that we've got recorded. So yeah, and we, it, there isn't any real structure to which topics we decide each week but it is in much. We don't want to put out too many testing related topics in a row if we haven't done a leadership topic for a while.
So, and the one-to-ones was something we were all passionate, wanting to be an [00:27:13] early one because as leaders, we felt it was important to have those right kind of meetings with, with your employees and not, you know, set it out that you've got one type of one-to-one that's the same for everybody. Cause everybody's different.
Everyone needs their own structure with their manager and they need to feel safe. They need to feel like they're being listened to and they need to have the right structure in place for them. Some will want very formal. Some will want a casual, how are you? How's the family? You know, you learn a bit about them and have a casual chat rather than a status update meeting.
But you know, you try and accommodate everyone's needs and make sure they have what they need.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, I agree. And I think it's really important so I just think it's cool. You guys are covering that kind of stuff too.
Simon Prior: Nice. Good to hear that it's useful.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, I think so. So then you're a neurodiversity advocate as well. And I'll tell you that I hadn't ever heard the term neurodiversity actually, until I got to the UK. It's not like, I [00:28:13] didn't know people that now that I know what it is, didn't know people, but it was something I experienced in the world of comedy and there would be these neurodiverse nights and things like that.
So, first of all, can you just explain the term neurodiversity?
Simon Prior: Yeah. So I think it's, it's, it's meaning's changed somewhat, but from, from my, my sort of experience of it, neurodiversity is, it tends to mean the, that the explanation of the different brain conditions and the different wirings and the brain that mean people will think differently. And the, the, the classic forms of neurodiversity would be things like autism, ADHD, dyslexic, dyslexia, dyspraxia, discalcula all those kinds of
neuro conditions. But it also it's become more widely as a, everyone thinks differently. Technically everyone could be classed as neuro-diverse in some way, because no two people think exactly the same way. So yeah, it's really just pushing that kind of diversity of the mind.
Rabiah (Host): Well, and you've written, I mean, in your blog, you've written articles about having a neurodiverse, friendly [00:29:13] workplace, and especially just, I was reading some of your articles about interviewing and interview questions, for example, that was more recently you did. And that was interesting. And the idea that like, tell, ask someone, can you tell me about a time X, Y, or Z, and then they could just say yes and that'd be it.
And so can you talk a little bit about that? That was interesting to me.
Simon Prior: Yeah. It's just from my experience of, of interviews. When I look back at some of the interviews that I've been part of, or I've been in either interviewing or being the interviewee, it's very much been the panel interview where you've got two or three people sat opposite you all staring at you at the same time asking you one question after another, after another with sort of no breaks for conversations. And I even, I tried to apply to the military when I was going to university and I had the military interview where they have four or five of them with pat on the panel, we clipboards watching every move of you.
And it just feels like that's the old, that's the sort of the extreme version of what interviews tend to be. It does feel like a bit of a grilling and an assessment. And just trying to make that more [00:30:13] neurodiverse friendly, particularly for someone with autism who doesn't do well with eye contact, struggles with eye contact.
If they're looking around the room rather than looking at you, unless you know why, that can sometimes be enough for an interviewer to go what, I'm not going to take them. They're not even looking at me,
eye contact. But if you make it more neurodiverse friendly and say actually, you can sit wherever you want, look in whatever direction you like.
I've had interviews before, where I've had someone say, you know, that the client is coming in he's, he's autistic. He may not want to look at you. And he did. He sat and faced the other way. But once you realize that, and yes, it felt a bit awkward to start with, he was then able to feel comfortable. He was able to articulate his answers.
He was able to talk through things and in a lot more detail than he would have done if he was facing me front on. And, ultimately for me, it's all about making that interview process as comfortable as possible to be able to enable the person to be their true selves and find that topic that they can be really passionate and talk about.
Because for me, an interview is about [00:31:13] opening that box and getting someone passionate and excited about the topic they want to talk about and see that real person. So if you can find the way of questioning that, like you say, doesn't, doesn't have closed questions where someone can just say yes or no and, and actually give them the opportunity to learn a bit more about the company and ask questions to you as well. And I think for maybe for someone with autism, it might be good to send some of the questions out beforehand and give them time to prepare their answers so that they can give you the best response rather than what they've done on the spot. And there might be panicking or stressing in that moment.
So having time to, to prepare will, will definitely help.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. I mean, there's even that game, people who interview like to do where they try to have the "gotcha question", like, oh, I'm gonna see how it's like, what is that? How you're treating your employees? Like, are you, you know, is that what you're doing?
Simon Prior: Yeah, it's, it's difficult. Isn't it? It's interviews have to be less about trying to catch [00:32:13] people out and trying to score points almost on, on what you can get from an interview, but more about let's aim to try and get the best out of the candidate as possible. Let them see the best version of others as interviewers as well, and making it as accessible as possible for everyone involved.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, I agree. I talked to this woman- I do some mentor work and help people with like interview prep and stuff sometimes- and this one woman said she got feedback that she wasn't making eye contact. And I actually just having made some friends I've made, I've been more aware of things. And so I asked her, I said, well, is that an issue for you?
Like, do you, you know, not want to make eye contact? And I said, I can talk to one of my friends and see how they handle that. And she said, no, I just, it was easier not to because it, then I couldn't see their reaction. And I was like, wait, was this online? And she said, yeah, so it wasn't a virtual interview, and, she wasn't making eye contact there, meaning she [00:33:13] wasn't looking at the camera, which I think you and I are both not looking at the camera cause we're looking
Simon Prior: looking at either
Rabiah (Host): at your face
Simon Prior: Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): Right. And so because, and so then I was like, well, just ignore him. Like, you know? I mean, if you're supposed to make eye contact virtually that's ridiculous, but it was
Simon Prior: if they, if they're putting that kind of restriction on an interview process over on online virtually, then, then yeah, that doesn't sound like a a company or a boss that I'd want to work for.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, just don't work for them. That was weird. But I thought, man, what's this guy doing person, you know? weirdest...
Simon Prior: Absolutely.
Rabiah (Host): thing. So what got you involved in this?
Simon Prior: So I have a sister who's autistic. I've grown up with autism my whole life. I'm pretty convinced I'm, I've got traits myself. I've also now got a seven year old son who's autistic as well. So it's very, it's very very at large in my family and it it's given me that determination to break down the barriers at all costs to ensure that my son has the best life
he can. Be successful as he can and not have things, block him from [00:34:13] progressing to where he wants to be on the, in the school level as well as in the workplace. And, it's been, it's been really nice actually how, how opening and appreciative each year have been of me sort of presenting a lunch and learn session on neurodiversity and being able to push things a bit more there and opening those conversations up with people at work say, yeah actually, yeah, I've got family who are on the spectrum or they've got ADHD and we've struggled with this, that, and the other.
And I'd love to be able to find ways to get people into the work environment. And it's now opened doors for me to be able to be involved in helping set the policies at work for accessible workplace around neurodiversity. Not just for our staff, but also looking at our customers in airports as well, and trying to really broaden that, that view of how we help people from all backgrounds, not just the, the ones that are visibly disabled in airports.
And it's just, yeah, it's just one of those things that's opened doors for me to start talking a bit more about knowing that I'm doing my little bit to help improve the workplace and [00:35:13] improve accessibility for everyone.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. And one thing that you just said struck me was about it being invisible, you know? Or being visible or not, and that's one thing with, I mean, I, so I think I've said it on this podcast before, I have MS, and that's invisible, for me . And there is something interesting about when you can't see whatever it is with the person, often people will just say things to them, you know, that are insensitive. I got told all the time how, you know, people with illnesses should just stay home and you know, they're going to die anyway. And I was like, well, I'm kind of standing right here, but thanks. You know, and
Simon Prior: Yeah,
Rabiah (Host): you just... and I think with autism and, and, and well, anything really in the neurodiversity spectrum that you've talked about, a lot of, it's not visible, like you don't look at a person and just see it. And so what, I guess this is probably a too big of a question, but what would you like to see changed? That about how people [00:36:13] like treat each other, even in an initial meeting just by making assumptions?
Simon Prior: Yeah. I just feel that people need to be free to be who they want to be, and people need to be free to be able to share as much about it as they want to as well. And, everyone needs to be accepting of not everyone's the same as you, not everyone does things exactly the same way you do them. Examples,
I've I worked with a colleague for a long time that used to insist on having a 10:30 coffee break every morning without fail. Regardless of whether he was in the middle of a meeting, in the middle of talking to someone in the middle of a piece of work, he would literally get up his desk at half past 10 or get out of the meeting room and walk out the room and go and grab a cup of coffee and walk out into the car park.
And that was his daily routine. He would never switch from that. Nothing stopped him from doing it. And to start with people were a bit like, ""why is he getting a part of a meeting that's so rude? What, what, what, what does he think he's doing? It's, you know, career-ending type moves and some of the meetings he but it's, it bred that acceptance of, okay, here it's a routine, you know, we have to enable them to be as best. [00:37:13] Let's allow them to do it. And eventually everyone got wind of it and everyone's like, okay, fair enough. That's that's just how he is. And it's just, just starting those little acceptance things, starting those small gestures of asking someone, "is there anything I can do to help?""
Is there anything that you need?" You know, if, if there's a very strong smell from a kitchen and you know, someone's very sensory towards smells. Doesn't have to be in the somewhere. They're not narrow diversity. I, myself, you know, smell from microwave coming out, you don't want to be near it. But it's, it's just enabling people to be able to move away and do things differently if they need to instill, be able to work and just being open and offering assistance, if they need it.
Being kind is what it comes down to being kind and being accepting of everyone for their differences and anything I can do to encourage that would be would be a plus.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, I agree. I mean, cause sometimes it's kind of our own hangups that get involved anyway when we're like, oh, that person's at that person's that. And all these labels that everyone has to have and... even [00:38:13] the pressure to label ourselves, like, you know, if you have a quirk or something, then you have to be something.
Simon Prior: Yeah, agreed. And that, and that's one of the things around it is it's not necessarily about the label. I mean, I think neurodiversity has become a thing where everyone talks about neurotypical and neurodiverse and actually everyone's different. We need to just talk about people as being themselves. You know, embrace the differences, accept everyone for who they are. Allow them to be their best selves.
If they need any kind of assistance support and whatever, then, then let's give them that and support them in whatever way we can and just be, be kind and be supportive with everybody.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. So what are some of the things outside of EasyJet that you've done with your advocacy?
Simon Prior: So I've done the blogging which I've shared around in different places. I'm doing a conference panel talk in November on neurodiversity in tech. And I'm getting a few opportunities to do that kind of thing as well. I'm also talking to my son's school next week about neurodiversity. They've got diversity week so they've invited me in to talk about that. So, there's little bits and pieces going on. I'm [00:39:13] doing a lot of sort of research in the background to, to write more blogs and publish more stuff on that. But, yeah, it's, it's more sort of just talking about it really and finding opportunities. I've done a few podcasts like this, where I've talked about it briefly. So it's just trying to push that agenda out one, one step at a time, really, and, and help improve the workplace and the wider environment.
Rabiah (Host): So do you think just between having the podcast and doing your advocacy work, that that's been helpful to you as far as just work and creating more balance for yourself?
Simon Prior: I would say, yes, I think there's other things I'm still doing as well. I say yes to too many things, but because of my passions, I mean, one of the things I am also doing, I've been doing for the last five years is I'm researching how much testing and quality is taught in university.
I set up a hashtag called "make a tester" about five years ago where I, I literally, I was invited back to my university and they're like, come and do a careers talk. And, and then they asked me what I'm doing. And I said, I'm in QA. Oh no, we don't teach that. Can [00:40:13] you not come and do a career stalk on that?
Can you come and do a special subject talk instead? And I was like, well, hang on a minute, it's a career, why you not letting me do a careers talk?. But then I started researching with universities and none of the UK top 25 taught testing at all. Or, sorry, one had a module, one module in the top 25. So I did a talk at a conference.
I sort of shared my research. I got the community to come back and say, okay, what are the top five skills we look for in testers? None of them are technical skills. There was critical thinking. There was communications. There was curiosity. All this kind of stuff, but no technical skills, which might be why universities weren't teaching it. But five years on the podcast have agreed to sort of take it up as a, as a new project. And before between the four of us were contacting every university in the UK to find out what computer science courses teach it. We've spoken to 68 of them, only 12 teach it at the moment. So we're going to try and get the other 40 or 50 universities covered as well. But the intention of writing a white paper or research [00:41:13] presentation to present at a conference and then pairing with a university to try and help them build the right syllabus to try and help. It's not just about increasing the number of testers coming out of university. It's increasing the awareness of testing full stop. So even developers and PMs and BAs that come out into the workplace, I've got that knowledge of what good testing looks like.
So they can help shape the quality aspects of stuff as well. But Yeah.
it's been a passion of mine. I literally every opportunity I'd try and help talk about testing, where I can. We've got some work experience, students coming in at EasyJet at the moment, and I'm trying to encourage them to look at testing and doing talks on testing as well.
I'm one of these people that wear testing slogan t-shirts that I've picked up from conferences and try and just start those conversations at any point I can and just try and get people talking about it because that's the only way to raise awareness outside of, outside of the testing world, outside of the testing bubble. Because I think one thing that's very clear. Doesn't matter how many testers we have in the world. We all talk to each other. And we all think, you know that [00:42:13] within the testing world, it's great, but outside, no one understands what we do. Well, actually we need to start talking outside of our bubble then, and start talking to people outside the testing world to make them realize what, what we do and help shape the way forward, build a culture of quality across our company so that everyone understands where we're going.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, that's great. And it's funny cause it's like they don't teach that, but they don't teach them to write code with no bugs.
Simon Prior: Well, exactly.
Rabiah (Host): you can't, right? it's not gonna... it's not like everyone gets out and goes, oh, I have no bugs. So.
Simon Prior: Yeah, Well, that's the thing. I mean, they teach seven or eight different programming languages in a three year computer science course, but they don't teach you any of any testing at all. It's
Rabiah (Host): it's kind of like not teaching someone who read to in writing class, not teaching them grammar
Simon Prior: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. That's a
Rabiah (Host): was like, oh, I just write whatever I want, you know, at any order, it
Simon Prior: No, absolutely. That's actually a really good answer. I might not use that again if that's okay.
Rabiah (Host): Oh yeah, please do. That'd be good. Oh, that's awesome. Is there anything we didn't cover that you want to?[00:43:13]
Simon Prior: I don't think so. I think, no, I think we've covered everything that I think I'm doing it at the moment. I'll talked testing until the cows come home, so it's, it's, it's become more than a job. It's a hobby, really. Other than spending time with the kids. So my, my wife and um doing the podcast, I, I, I'm always trying to upskill myself learn more, but not to, not just for my sake, but to try and improve my team improves the way we do work at and, and do testing at work and building.
That culture. And I'm starting to get some traction at work. We've built an internal community where we invite everyone across technology to come and talk to listen to testing talks and whatever else. And even the Director of Tech is like really on board with testing now. And he's sort of pushing the, you know, you need to do this right.
Make sure we put people in the right places rather than it being the old fashioned view of, "Oh testing is not important" because at the start of the pandemic, they got, they broke down the whole testing department got rid of the headache. Separated us all out into separate teams. And yeah, it's not worked.
So they're now looking at how we build up testing again as an important practice. So it's, it's having a [00:44:13] difference and me being the persistent voice and not being shy to push quality at every opportunity has definitely helped with that.
Rabiah (Host): well, that's awesome. Well, good for you. That's really great.
Simon Prior: Thank you.
Rabiah (Host): So, Do you have any advice or mantra that you just like, that you want to share with audience?
Simon Prior: I think the thing that I learned a few years ago is stick to your values and don't be, don't be afraid to make changes if your values are not being met. I spent a lot of time. I did a self retrospective about four years ago. Well, I wrote down all the things I thought I was doing well, or the things that weren't and built my, my own values, both from her.
I've done blog posts on both there's testing values and as a leadership values. And I tried to make sure I stick to those. I actually find it easy to stick to my leadership values and I do my testing values, but I'm still trying to make sure I fit them. And I've moved jobs twice now, since I created those values, because there was conflicts with them.
And I try to live every day. I know I've got the values on my wall. I stick to them. I [00:45:13] try and make sure I worked through them. And challenge myself if I'm not doing it. So I would say, yeah, exactly that stick to your values or invest time in finding your values and then stick to them. And don't be afraid to make difficult decisions if you're conflicting with them.
Rabiah (Host): Great. Is there a tool or is it in your blog that you wrote about how you did your assessment or is there a tool you like liked using for assessing your values?
Simon Prior: I can't remember what the tool wast I used or not, but I used the mind mapping tool to create a mind map of all the things that I was doing and generated off that. But yeah, mind maps, I love drawing mind maps out to think things through. And I use the interactive whiteboard stuff now, like Miro and Metroretro are really good.
They're for retrospectives sold online with sticky notes and stuff. It's really good.
Rabiah (Host): Oh, cool. Nice. And actually I saw on your website too, you have this "readme" document
Simon Prior: Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): is that? Because I, I thought, oh, that's pretty cool, like, I might try to do one.
Simon Prior: That's that's good to hear. I that's come out [00:46:13] this year. I did that. I was struggling with the communi... especially with the meeting overloads at work and, and the fact that people were just literally, you know, you think you've got half hour break, you've walked, you're going to have a toilet break or go make a cup of tea, come back and that half an hour break has been filled with a meeting because people aren't sending requests out beforehand and saying, oh, can we book and talk about this? They're just block booking your calendar wherever they can see a gap. And you get, you're in meetings all day, or you're working on stuff all day and you get constant IM's on Slack or on Teams wanting to talk to you where they just say hi, and you don't get back to them.
And then they ping you again. And it just got to a point where I was like, you know what, I need to set some boundaries here? I'm I'm not getting any work done because I'm responding to either I AM's or I'm in meetings all day. So, let's set some boundaries and I used it as an ex a way of explaining what my communication preferences are. And then also. What makes me tick, what am I topics I like talking about? Which obviously testing was one of them. And then sort of what [00:47:13] not to do, what things that really frustrate me as well, and I've shared it internally. And I actually, I presented at our all hands recently, a wellbeing all hands where they, where they got me to present about it because it's something they're trying to encourage other people to look at as well.
And then I put it in my signature at work. So, you know, want to know how best to communicate with me? Read my, check my readme. And people are starting to follow it. People are actually booking meetings with agendas. They are sending me a message on Slack or something first saying, "Hey, can we chat for 10 minutes? Let me know when you're free" kind of thing, rather than just dialing me or, or setting up a meeting and a gap that I've got.
So it's, it's starting to change that and hopefully other people will pick it up as well and it'll it'll improve. But yeah, it's another way of me trying to, trying to improve my own situation and giving myself some some, some time back to have breaks and have lunch and get some exercise.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. I'm one of those people that I don't like- if friends or family, I want people to call me, right? Cause I don't feel like enough people call and I just feel like just call.
Simon Prior: I would agree with that.
Rabiah (Host): But, [00:48:13] there's some people who just will call you at work and say, what are you doing?You almost feel like, how dare you?
Simon Prior: Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): call me?
What are you doing? And, and yeah, and I do prefer to like, just, if you need something, just say it. Don't make me talk to you about my weekend and stuff when you just wanted this one thing answer. Cause now you've taken my five, you know, so I get it and it's not unfriendliness it's just more...
Simon Prior: yeah.
Rabiah (Host): like, let's be honest about what we want and you don't care about my weekend.
So now, you know.
Rabiah (Host): All right, so we have the Fun Five. It's the last questions I ask every guest. It's my, I guess, way of just having some control on this podcast, but so, we could automate these actually, I guess that'd be the only thing you could automate here, but
Simon Prior: What about automation?
Rabiah (Host): Okay.
What's the oldest t-shirt you have and still wear?
Simon Prior: Yeah. I was, I was thinking about this earlier. I think there's two possibly, I've got the, my first ever [00:49:13] gig, which was Bowling for Soup who are in a US punk pop band. I saw Norwich in 2003. Yeah.
I've got still got that. T-shirt I still wear that. And I've got a football shirt from a similar timeframe from my team Petersborough United as well
so I still wear them when I canum much to my wife's disgust sometimes, but Yeah. I still wear them.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah. Yeah. They start to lose their integrity. I'm a little older than you, I think. So. Just give it another 10 years and you'll see what happens. That's all my Phil Collins t-shirts destroyed, put it that way. Pandemic, you spent more time in like clothes you would never wear out, you know?
Simon Prior: Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): All right.
So if every day was really Groundhog's Day, like people have been saying, and it's kind of felt that way. We both been sick, or, I am now, but you were recently. What song would you have your alarm clock play every morning?
Simon Prior: I spent too much time thinking about this one. I, as with everything I I narrowed it down to about four songs, but I think I'll go for an upbeat one. That's reminds me of good times. And that'd be Mr. Brightside by The Killers.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. That's cool. And coffee or tea, or neither?
Simon Prior: both.
Rabiah (Host): Both.
Simon Prior: [00:50:13] Yeah. I, again, Stranger this one as well. I'll probably start the day with the tea with breakfast and then mid morning I'll have a coffee. If I'm in the office, I'll have Costa. I love my Costas but at home, yeah, just a latte of some kind. And then yeah, back onto tea for the afternoon.
Rabiah (Host): Nice. Do you have a certain way you take the tea?
Simon Prior: Strong with a little bit of milk
Rabiah (Host): okay.
Simon Prior: and it has to be Yorkshire tea as well.
Rabiah (Host): Okay. So very specific. Yeah, because some people just say tea and they don't really know, and I'm like, ah, you're not drinking it then. Can you think of a time you just laughed so hard you cried, or just something that makes you do that, like you just lose it?
Simon Prior: I was listening to the podcast with Brian Mohr this morning and he said something about his daughters. And I think I'd say the same about my, my sons. They got to an age now where they're sassy and they, they repeat stuff back and um, they just say the things like "don't talk to me like that." And they're thinking, they've obviously heard that from me or, or his mom or their mum and it, you try and keep a straight face in the moment, but it's yeah, you can't stop yourself from laughing.
Sometimes there's just some of the comments that are [00:51:13] coming out with it's just, yeah. And I'm not very good at hiding my laughing either, which doesn't help.
Rabiah (Host): no. I've talked about that. I had my sister, I had a mother's day one and I had, my sister was one of the guests and a couple other women. And my sister and I talked about that, how our mom would just get so mad at us, but then she'd be laughing and trying not to laugh. So then we'd start laughing at her and it was just this whole thing, you know?
And then my sister kind of is like that. And I'm, I mean, I don't have kids so I'm the worst. I'll start laughing. I don't care. It's not my it's the parents' problem. Not mine, you know?
Simon Prior: Yeah. Fair play.
Rabiah (Host): Okay. And who inspires you right now?
Simon Prior: I think that's without sounding cheesy, obviously my, my kids and my wife are the first things that come to mind, but I think at the moment, my team at work. The amount of they've gone through this last six months of the year. And they're all still doing it with a smile on their face. They're all trying to learn.
They were trying to move forward and we're all collectively doing it together. There's no, there's no sort of hierarchy as such with the team. We're all in it [00:52:13] together. And we all feel every day. And I think they've actively inspired me to be better for them. I think over the last, last year.
Rabiah (Host): That's awesome. That's really nice. Yeah. I mean, you can tell, you just have respect for everyone you work with. So it's awesome. No, I mean, not everyone does, so it's good. You know, I feel similar. Like it's important to work with cool people.
Simon Prior: Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): cool. Well, Simon, it's been great chatting with you. I really enjoyed it.
So thanks for coming on.
Simon Prior: It's been
Rabiah (Host): on and
Simon Prior: Thank you for having me on. I'm really glad I've responded to that LinkedIn post.
Rabiah (Host): Yeah, I am too. See, this is what happens if you guys write to us.
Simon Prior: Yeah.
Rabiah (Host): And our podcast posts, we respond to them.
So, Yeah, Cool. All right. Thank you.
thanks again for listening this week. You can find out more about the guest in the show notes. Joe Maffia created the music just for this podcast. Find him on Spotify. That's Joe M A F F I A. [00:53:13] And Rob Metke is responsible for our visual design. You can find him online by searching for Rob M E T K E. Thanks, Rob.
Let me know who you'd like to hear from, or about your own experiences of finding yourself outside of work. Follow at more than work pod (@morethanworkpod), or send a message on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or visit our websitemore than work pod dot com (morethanworkpod.com). Give us a follow on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review if you like. Thanks for listening to More Than Work. While being kind to others. Don't forget to be kind to yourself.
