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Would you like to make a living from testing imported furniture, food, clothes, walls and other household items? This is no longer a low status profession, but each deal depends on local condisions.

If you live in a modern neighbourhood, your community has probably imported various furniture and household items for years. If there was no import control your regional catalogue is probably packed with not so good items. Did nobody test those items before they were accepted for the catalogue? Did some locals produce items that were accepted before they were actually found to work properly?

This is where the Test sims come in! It is a career that we hardly hear anything about, but the truth is that all over Sim Nation there are sims working hard on testing new stuff for the catalogues. This article will help you to get started as a test sim, and your Hood Council might pick up an advice or two as well.

This profession is still suffering from other sims ignorance. It's common to believe that test sims are poor and less skilled, and that a test sim job is the last chance for those who couldn't get a decent job. This is of course not true. In the Mazaloom County where Simmerville is located, there is even a whole neighbourhood named Testville, and we know that there are many Testville hoods all over the nation. In modern time the test job is no longer split from the regular hoods, and it's pretty common to have at least 1 test sim family per hood.

How to become a Test sim
Most test sims actually do this job without being registered as test sims. They keep testing stuff without really having accepted such a job, and often without even being paid. In modern neighbourhoods Test sims do have a formal deal and the testing is considered a full worthy job.

If your neighbourhood doesn't already have such a deal for testsims, you could suggest to test imported goods, but be clear on that you will not do it without getting paid. I'd say a minimum pay would be §250 a day, but this will depend on the work load and how well the community do organize the testing.

Testing imported furniture and household items, walls, floors, clothes etc. is the most common duties for a test sim. Because there are clothes and items for all ages (i.e. toys) a perfect test sim will have a family to help testing. Kids love to test out toys before the other kids in the hood get them. Even a partner who has another job might like to help testing some items, say taking a nap on a new sofa isn't the hardest work in the sim world. Beds, food and entertainment items need testing too, so much of this work can be integrated with your everyday life.

In addition you can test new neighbourhood facilities like Downtown, Magic Town etc. Or even gambling, medicines and cure objects, or other more risky business.

Skills and equipment
No skills are needed, but you will need an average skill. Some skills will even build while testing new items, say you are to test a canning station or a chess table.

You might like to read up on interests such as style and technology, but it's not strictly needed.

The work can get tough at times, because you will need to spend a lot of time on sitting in different chairs and sofas, going to bed and wake up again right away, take showers while you are not in need of it, etc. Some items even need your focus for several days, such as new plants.

How to test objects
The easiest part of the job is to test walls and floors. Then you will simply add them to your home, or to the separate test home that some test sims have on their lot, and see that they look fine.

When it comes to seating and tables, beds and other furniture that you will need to interact with, that can be time consuming. The job will include checking them from 4 angles and 3 views, and you should even check that they do not bleed through walls etc.

When testing a new plant it is smart to plant 2 of them, and water only one, to see if it dies without water. 

When you are done testing an object, it's time to eventually suggest adjustments to costs or descriptions. Most objects are prized fine, but some are cloned from other objects and the result is often a cost not making sense compared to other similar products of the regional catalogue. Remember that the description of any imported goods should not be changed, but you can suggest a warning or extra information to be added. Add a line between the original text and your comment, to avoid future frustrations:
"---
Warning: needs a lot of space on both sides"

Some well organized neighbourhoods even use the Price Tag System to set a fair price, and they check the object's daily depreciation as well as the depreciation limit. You don't need to do these complicated things, though. Ask your Hood Council what they think. You will need tools like Transmogrifier and SimCategorizer to alter these things.

The pay cheque
There are many ways you can get paid. Some test sims get a daily pay cheque by use of the Money Transfer System. Then you can cash in §250 or §500 per day or per Family Day or whatever you agree on.

Others get paid more indirectly. When importing the goods the community can set the object's cost to §0, so that the testsim won't need to pay in order to test the object. If the test sim keeps the object over night, she or he will earn the depreciation limit which is often 20% of the object's market value. Most test sims do get rid of the objects as soon as they have tested them, and keeps only a few objects to secure some income. Even if you do not think of keeping some objects over night you always will keep some for testing the next day, and you will earn money steadily without noticing. Test sim families are not as poor as you might think!
The Hood Council can also agree on a certain pay per day or per items or percent of the total value the test sim buy in order to test. 

From the neighbourhoods
In Simmerville there is the Light family. They had a rather turbulent history, and recently Mrs Light took out a divorce and moved elsewhere in Simmerville, so the current test family now counts only Mr Pale Light and the daughter Blenda.

- We have ben testing imports to this hood for abot an year. We used to live in Testville. Our deal with Simmerville is that we get the objects to test for free, and when we are don we meight get paid some, depending on how time consumming the test is. If we test them and get rid of them reight away we earn nothing, but if it's a bed that we test a couple night we can earn severels hundreds simoleon. We never actually worried about the income, because we always had enogh money. And we were also given access to free equipment for the house if we boght before the items was tested. So some objects we actually keeped for free. This is also a way of erning money.

In Betterville there is the Medio family.
- We used to test clothes only, but lately we got a new contract with the local management. I, Mrs Medio, works at home all day testing female clothes, while Mr Medio has got an ordinary job. I like to spend the day in front of my mirror in my bedroom checking the clothes. I also go downtown to discuss the clothes with the clothing shops clerks.

Photo #1:
Mrs Blondie Light, back when she was still skinny. Wearing an outfit by Gobelin Fashion that was never released, eating a cake that was to be tested. As a test sim you might gain weight, like Mrs Light is now using only large clothes.
Photo #2:
Here Mr Pale Light is testing a new stove. The stove turned out to be fine, but Mr Light's cooking skills might need some improvement.
Photo #3:
Being a test sim also include fun activities. Here is Blenda Light testing a roller coaster. Well, it might have been fun to some sims, while Blenda was very scared and hated to do this job.