AST has membership cards!

In an email last week, I jokingly referred to myself as a “Card carrying member of the Association for Software Testing.”

I got a membership card in the mail the same day. Number 137, to be exact.

The cards are black-and-white with the grasshopper logo, and a “member since” date.

Oddly enough, in 1996 I founded an honor society for cadet officers called the “Ira C. Eaker Association”, or ICEA. We had membership cards too; you can see one on-line here.

Sadly, the ICEA has been out of business for several years now. CadetStuff.org basically fulfills the purpose we set out for ICEA, and, actually, has pretty much the same people on staff.

Ok, Ok, maybe the AST doesn’t need a color membership card – although the ICEA ones were nice. Maybe a challenge coin instead? 🙂

Here’s the serious part, folks: All of those little things are sign of profession. That is to say, a professional tester is someone who says out loud (professes) that “tester = me.”

Do you profess to be a tester? How would other people know?