It’s been a while since I’ve written.
The holidays came and went. A few releases went sideways in ways that rattled my confidence more than I expected. The pressure didn’t let up, and in some ways it intensified. More context to hold. More fragility to be aware of. More responsibility without a clear sense that I was actually keeping up.
There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from working sixty hours a week and still feeling behind. From knowing more about the business than you used to, and realizing how precarious some parts of the system really are. From being the person people look to when things go wrong, while quietly wondering whether you’re actually as skilled as you thought you were.
I’ve handled seasons like this before. Not always well. So rather than offering polished advice, I want to name a few ways I’ve not handled pressure, and what I’m slowly learning to do instead.
One Way Not to Handle Pressure: Working Harder and Going Quiet
One of my default moves under pressure is to simply work more. Longer hours. Fewer breaks. Less reflection. Less conversation. I tell myself that if I can just push through this stretch, things will settle down.
What actually happens is that my world shrinks. I stop asking good questions. I stop noticing early warning signs. I carry everything internally, which makes the pressure feel even heavier. From the outside, it can look like calm competence. Inside, it’s often just containment.
I’m learning that silence under pressure isn’t resilience. It’s isolation.
The better version, when I can manage it, is to externalize earlier. To say out loud, “This feels heavy,” or “I’m not sure this is sustainable,” before the situation forces the conversation. Naming pressure doesn’t make it go away, but it does prevent it from becoming invisible and corrosive.
Another Way Not to Handle Pressure: Personalizing System Failures
When releases go poorly, or when bugs surface that feel obvious in retrospect, I have a tendency to turn that inward. I replay decisions. I second-guess my judgment. I quietly rewrite the story of who I am as a tester or quality manager.
The burden of knowing more about the system makes this worse. Once you see how fragile certain paths are, it’s hard not to feel responsible for everything that could break. The line between accountability and self-blame gets blurry very quickly.
What I’m learning, slowly, is to distinguish between responsibility and ownership of every outcome. Systems fail for systemic reasons. Quality is an organizational property, not a personal one. My role is to surface risk, improve clarity, and help the system learn. It is not to be a single point of moral failure when something goes wrong.
That distinction doesn’t come naturally to me, but it’s necessary if I want to stay in this work.
A Third Way Not to Handle Pressure: Confusing Urgency with Importance
Under constant pressure, everything starts to feel urgent. Messages. Meetings. Hotfixes. Requests for help. The day fills up quickly, and by the end of it, it’s hard to say what actually mattered.
I’ve handled this in the past by reacting well. Being responsive. Being available. Being the person who jumps in. That feels virtuous, but it often comes at the cost of deeper work and longer-term clarity.
The better version isn’t disengagement. It’s discernment. Asking, sometimes repeatedly, “What actually needs my attention right now?” and “What can wait without causing harm?” Especially in quality work, not everything that is loud is important, and not everything important is loud.
Learning to slow the pace of response without neglecting responsibility is one of the hardest skills I’m still trying to build.
What I’m Holding Onto Right Now
I don’t have this figured out. The pressure is still real. The work is still demanding. Some days still feel like barely keeping up.
What I’m trying to remember is that feeling overwhelmed is not proof that I’m failing. It’s often a sign that I’m standing close to the real complexity of the system. That proximity carries weight, but it also carries insight.
I’m learning to treat pressure as information rather than indictment. To ask what it’s telling me about load, expectations, and limits. And to trust that steadiness, not frantic effort, is what actually sustains good quality work over time.
If you’re feeling this too, you’re not alone. And if it’s been a while since you’ve written, or reflected, or named the weight you’re carrying, that doesn’t mean you’ve lost your voice. It may just mean you’ve been holding more than anyone can carry quietly for very long.
—
Beau Brown
Testing in the real world: messy, human, worth it.
Testing Tester 
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