Marketing Valet's QA team - love them, hate them!
By Maria Teresa "TDR" del Rosario, Marketing Valet
Working in Quality Assurance is a crazy, mixed up job, and we know it. We are neither designers nor Project Managers, but our jobs require us to be a bit of both. We have to know both the PM’s and the designer’s business – which gives us a lot of opportunities to offend both camps.
QA people are supposed to be obsessed with details, down to the P’s and T’s. Yes, we are, but in reality, we nit-pick on more than just the spelling, the grammar, and the punctuations. We worry about form, format, punctuation, spacing, messaging, branding, color, feel, size, fonts, links, copy, pictures, sentence structure, layout and other aspects that make a collateral consumer-friendly and on-target.
Is QAing hard? It’s not for everyone. A lot of patience and attention is required. QA requires an obsession with the smallest details. No mistake is too small to notice, when your job involves making sure that the material is good and error-free.
Every few days, we also get the chance to handle different projects, which gives us an opportunity to break the monotony.
QAs lead from the front, and push from the back. If you’re a designer who feels like you can’t create any more designs, we’re here to light your backsides on fire. When you feel you can’t take any more, we’ll be there to give you more edits. The QA team is the proverbial thorn in your side, the cramp to your style. If there’s one sure thing about us QAs, we never give up a chance to edit.
Claudyl “Stormy” Borejon
Claud is a Marketing Valet veteran at almost two years’ service. She’s a legend in the office – those who have experienced her “attitude” firsthand know when to stay away. Office newbies are forewarned of the consequences through the many “Tales of Claud” told by her victims.
Designers look to her for assistance and usually wait for her stamp of approval before proceeding with projects. Her good grasp of messaging, quick analysis of situations, tumbling thoughts and keen eye for details make her a formidable Communications and QA Specialist.
She has a soft side, too, one you’ll experience when sharing a coffee break with Claud outside. Production people know her by her trademark loud keyboard tapping and mumbling. The “wrath of Claud” falls upon those who do not know how to follow instructions.
“And you will know my name is the Claud when I lay my vengeance upon thee.” – after Pulp Fiction
Jacob “Spacer” Pepito
If you see a thin, dark guy, walking in a straight line without any expression at all, you’ve just found Jacob (known fondly to dayshifters as “Pepits”). He has built his reputation as a shrewd QA.
Under his shy exterior, he’s serious, strict and intimidating. He rarely speaks and is very soft-spoken when he does, but he can easily spin words around anyone. His grasp of the Adobe guidelines, messaging and tone makes him the Adobe expert for Marketing Valet's production teams.
This walking dictionary is known for his “out of this world” comments and “eye-crossing” suggestions. He might appear absent-minded or out of his mind, but deep inside he’s probably formulating his plan for world domination.
Maria Teresa “TDR/Teeds” Del Rosario
At first glance, she seems serious – well, she is – but her no-nonsense attitude only applies to her work. TDR or Teeds to us MVPs is a well-behaved young lady who works quietly and efficiently.
Don’t be fooled by that serious exterior though, she possesses a wacky sense of humor, usually utilized to get back at the constant teasing she tolerates from the designers.
Teeds is responsible for almost all of the latest add-ons on the intranet. She is QA and Marketing Valet’s story teller, breathing life to stories with her humorous and spontaneous write-ups.
Hans “Warbler” Felerino
Hannibal — yes, his name brings to mind a certain character who loves to have “friends” for “dinner” and no, he does not have the same impulses (we asked). “Hans,” as he prefers to be called, is the opposite of his namesake.
This keyboard-playing, twenty-something fashionista yields one of the most powerful weapons of all — his golden voice. Dubbed as the soul brother of Marketing Valet, he is often heard warbling tales about broken hearts, finding a new love and life in general.
As the resident QA for Central Production Pool, he juggles different accounts -- running, peeking at and pestering designers left and right – with nary a hair out of place on his well-gelled do.
Hans can charm his way out even with the challenging situations. That proved useful – especially if it means getting what he wants, when and how to get it.