This month we have a new host, James Serra. I’ve been trying to find new hosts over the last few years to keep this party going and to expand the ways in which people look at database work.

There are definitely less bloggers, but in the age of AI, I think the more you can stand out and show that you add value, that you think about things, that you can spot AI mistakes, the better off you are, so keep blogging an encourage others to do so.

This is a great invite, and I’ll give you my response below.

A Big Leap

I had changed jobs a few times after I moved to Colorado. I worked at an established small company, which was still a bit of a startup, and after sleeping in my office 8-10 times in a year, I looked for another job. Another startup, which failed, left me looking again. I got a job at JD Edwards, which turned into PeopleSoft after an acquisition. I was promoted, and in a good place.

At the time, I’d been running SQL Server Central on the side with Andy and Brian for a couple of years. We were making it work, but it was stressful in that we spent time at night, on weekends, and during breaks keeping it growing. We were feeling the stress and decided someone needed to work at it fulltime. We’d made a big sale, so we had some cash to give us stability, but if things went poorly, this was about a half a year’s salary for any of us.

We debated it a bit and I decided to make the leap to working for the company fulltime. I took a small pay cut to do so, but we expected a monthly dividends to make up for most of the decrease in pay. Not all, but most. The main reason I decided to make the leap was that my wife was working fulltime and provided our health benefits. That was a cost Andy or Brian would have needed to shoulder themselves.

This was a risk. At the time, I worried about my skillset. Would they atrophy? If this didn’t work, could I go back to work as a consultant or fulltime DBA? Would I miss out on the learnings and growth that come from being involved fulltime in projects for an organization?

Looking back, it doesn’t seem like a big risk, but at the time, in the 2003 timeframe, it felt like a major leap away from the security and stability of corporate work. Sure, I’d changed jobs in the past, but I always had a strong track record of delivering results in a position. I was giving some of that up and the longer I was away, the more I was worried about coming back.

Over time I realized that a lot of what I do here with testing scenarios, mocking situations, and working through the challenges people face is the same type of work that I would do in a corporate environment. I don’t have the pressure from a manager, but I often put that on myself, so it’s very similar.

This was a calculated risk, but still a work. Fortunately, it was a one that worked out well.