The Original:

    Once upon a time in a land far far away, an old man found the cocoon of a butterfly. Feeling lonely he decided to take the cocoon home to watch its transformation to a beautiful butterfly. One day a small opening appeared in the cocoon. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and could go no further. Clearly it was having trouble coming out of the cocoon

    So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took as pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged out easily…but it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

    What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God´s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

    The Moral: If Life had no obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been and we could never fly.

The Tester’s Version:

    Once upon a time in a land far far away (no, not that far away. come back) an old man* found some WinRunner scripts lying around. Feeling bored he decided to modify them, fix bugs in them and beautify the code.

    One day, satisfied with his work, he started the final run of the automation. He sat down and watched it click, type and navigate around the application in it’s own beautiful way. All of a sudden it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and could go no further. Clearly it was having trouble recognizing an OK button in the application.

    So the man decided to help the script move forward and clicked on the OK button. He continued to watch because he expected that any moment the script would continue. Nothing happened. It had just stopped. The script was still looking for the OK button, which wasn’t there anymore ‘cos the old man had already clicked on it. In fact, the entire automation that had been running perfectly fine for several hours had to be totally restarted.

    What the man in his kindness and haste (impatience and stupidity, actually) did not realize is that the Gods of Mercury don’t quite like to be interrupted.

    The moral: When Winrunner scripts are running, just leave the damn thing alone!

* Age and gender changed to protect the privacy of the guilty ;-)

P.S. I know that was a lame post but then, at times, I get a little too philosophical…in a weird sort of way :D