Any (ex) videogame testers out there?

So my friend said he could get me a job as a video game tester and I said I'd be interested in trying it out.
He told me a lot of awful things about it though, like how his friends are ruined from video games and what not.
Anyways are any of you video game testers? Or used to be one?
 
I'd like to hear some opinions and stories from some real video game testers.

I remember watching an episode of Penny Arcade where one of the guys explained his history of being a videogame tester. It sounded awful...

I'm not a video game tester or anything, but from what I've heard, being a video game tester is not fun at all. You get paid a shitty wage and you have to play from bad to buggy and unfinished games, meaning you'll probably be playing the game before it hits beta stage where things are more stable and less buggy. You'll probably also have to write down what bugs there are and need to report it in. 
 
Its also not an ideal spot to jump from to going into actually designing games.

From what I have heard you play the same stage over and over for hours and write down bugs that are usually ignored by the developer. But if you need a job it's better than cleaning sewers I guess.

watch Grandma's Boy. 

" I remember watching an episode of Penny Arcade where one of the guys explained his history of being a videogame tester. It sounded awful... "

"So my friend said he could get me a job as a video game tester and I said I'd be interested in trying it out. He told me a lot of awful things about it though, like how his friends are ruined from video games and what not. Anyways are any of you video game testers? Or used to be one?  I'd like to hear some opinions and stories from some real video game testers. "

I started out as a video game tester in 1996, and it's like any other job. Yes, you get to work on a video game and play the crap out of it, but you have to do horribly monotonous stuff. 
 
In order to work your way up though, I think it's the best entry position into the industry. You get to interact with the dev team (if you are any good), they start to trust you, and then transitioning your way into production is a natural progression. 
 
Much like on a construction job, you have to dig ditches before you become the foreman. QA testing is a great way through the front door - once you are in there, the rest is up to you.

   I heard its not that great of a job. Thats why everyone was making fun of the idea of The Tester.    

Everyone seems to think it's a terrible job, but I wonder if they're just treating it so harshly relevant to what they expected it to be. Of course it's not about getting paid to play video games and having a load of fun, but what entry level job is a load of fun? I imagine it's like any job - it's what you make out of the time you spend there, and how hard you try to get your foot in the door. Why not try it out for a few months and see how it goes? If you're getting nowhere, no ones stopping you from leaving.

used to do localisation QA testing. was very boring and tedious. I ended up testing (you guys are free to laugh with me) pony friends 2 for a month 9.30 to 6.00, most of which was testing the pc installer. On top of that the company very much treated us testers as dirt only to be prodded with by a long stick. but hey, beats a customer service job and gave me experience to get into the games industry when i finish my degree

Testing seems like a terrible job. I remember watching a video for Oblivion and the lead tester (or lead Q&A guy, whatever that means) basically said that he had to play through several parts of the game and test things like: 
 

• Being able to quit to the main menu while doing this or that
• Being able to save the game and load it while doing this and that
• Reporting freezes and bugs