I always made friends with the QA people because they had such large control over your job/project. I think them having so much power improved their relationship with other departments because if you piss them off, your job/project will probably get delayed. As I wrote in another post this week, they can stop/slow down jobs if they see a problem and there may or may not be an actual problem. Usually the QA person on back shift disagrees with the QA person on front so again, everyone just waits until backshift and the
“problem” is not a problem anymore. I’m not sure anyone knows who is right. Again, this is a problem in itself and I would recommend they fix this somehow. In conclusion, QA is a necessary evil but because most things are so subjective they can stop/slow down a job for any reason they can think of so it is in your best interest to have a good working relationship.