Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Shopping

    In about a week and a half, the SQLServerCentral opening night party takes place at the PASS Summit. And while I won’t be there, I’m in charge of the prizes that will be going out to everyone attending.

    In the past I’ve usually done a couple big Best Buy trips to load up on prizes, but this year I tried a few new things. Up until about two weeks ago, I was worried about my budget since the registration numbers were down for my referral code. So I went looking for some lower priced prizes since I tend to value some level of quantity and try to get more prizes out to people.

    Fortunately, about that time I ended up with an email from ThinkGeek. With my kids by my side, we surfed around the site and ended up with a few things. I won’t list them all, but I did get some of these:

    I also did hit Best Buy and grab a bunch of DVDs that were on sale. Among the titles I got were:

    • Iron Man 2
    • Hancock
    • Matrix all 3 in one
    • Batman – all 4 in one
    • more!

    As I wandered around, however I saw some other interesting things and grabbed a few:

    and

    And since my budget was a little higher than expected, I grabbed nice prizes. I wasn’t sure that I’d get one of these, but I did (these are going to Connections, but I have another).

    In the past we’ve saved three big prizes for the most profitable gambling winners, though I’m not sure I’ll do that for the iPad. Likely I’ll have someone do a drawing from the tickets at the Exceptional DBA presentation and award it then.

    Good luck to everyone!

  • My Bucket List

    I actually built on in 1999 and called it a Life List. Over the years I’ve tried to work on the list each year, knocking off something, but I also learned something. I learned that as I grew, and my life was more enjoyable, some of the things on my list no longer matter. I haven’t removed them because I spent some time on it and maybe they’ll come back later, but right now I’m pretty happy with my life.

    However I saw Brent Ozar’s list recently, and a few more (Aaron Bertrand, Jason Brimhall), so I decided to update mine with a short list for my career.

    In no particular order:

    Write a business book – It could be on business in general, professional development, or something else.

    Write a piece of software – I’ve done some development work, and written some utilities, but I’d like to write something that is useful to others, probably something on the web. SQL Saturday is my template, but I’d like to do something similar, but in a different area.

    Work for a non-profit – borrowed from my other list. Habitat for Humanity is at the top of my list, but maybe a local food bank will get me for a significant amount of time at some point.

    Mentor someone, explicitly – I’ve done some of this without meaning to, and people have recognized it. I’d like to ask someone if I can, or have them ask me and have it reach some type of completion status.

    Drive a Race Car – I’m fairly conservative and careful, and actually am tempted to pull my “skydiving” off my other list. But reading Brent’s list made me think about getting on a racetrack for a day or two. I actually investigated this a few years ago.

    Drive around the country and see all 50 states – I’ve driven across the US, multiple times in fact. However I’d like to get an RV and just cruise at some point. Likely it would be a 5th wheel living quarters trailer so my wife can bring her horses, but that would be great.

    There’s likely more, and I know that my old list could use a re-vamping, but this will do for now.

  • Overwhelmed, Stress, and Planning

    It’s been a bit hectic this year. In fact, it feels crazy most weeks as I try to manage work, home life, and free time. More and more I have been having a night or two a week where I just want to lay in bed and watch some TV to unwind. I even find myself ignoring email on the weekends, which is something I never used to do. If I could process something in a minute, I’d rather just handle it.

    However when stress hits, and you feel like there’s too much to do, it’s good to be able to let things go, or at least delay them for a bit. And that’s what I’ve trying. I’m slightly behind on articles, and likely need to send a few apology letters to authors.

    I started to free up time for next year, anticipating that I might be doing more volunteer work. When that fell through, I started to direct that energy elsewhere, looking for other community engagements. However that started to grow like crazy, and I once again find myself slightly overwhelmed.

    My son has karate 3 nights a week (as do I), my daughter had 2 days of volleyball a week, and my wife has had a few trips, which mean I have horse chores. I’ve been to a few SQL Saturdays lately, and have one more in addition to the SQL Connections and PASS Summit coming up next month. Then there’s ski season. It’s one of the ways I try to get away from work and manage stress, and I look forward to it. But it means that I have to prep for the time off.

    I would like to get to more community events in 2011, but I am starting to wonder if I will. The SQL Saturdays are short trips, but the time away adds up and I’d like to actually slow down a bit next year and take on less project stuff.

    There’s more to life than work, and I’m trying to remember that. Hopefully more of you remember that as well and ensure you have a good balance in life. It’s good to recognize when you’re out of balance and look to correct the situation. I’m not sure what I will do, but I am aware that I need to plan on doing something different next year.

  • The Growth of Professional Development

    When I started in my career, it seemed that there wasn’t a good way to grow your career. Myself, and many others, somewhat fumbled around, looking for jobs with bigger databases or more money. We thought that learning to be the best at a particular technology was the way to grow your career. That or go into management, something very few of us were interested in.

    Most people I worked with took a job with the expectation that they’d be there forever. When that didn’t work out, they started applying for other jobs, hoping the next one would be the last they’d need for a long time. Managing one’s career was something you did by updating a resume and asking your friends if they knew of any jobs, along with the random learning that comes from new projects or reading magazines.

    I’ve been amazed in the last 4-5 years to see so many people taking a more active role in their own careers, spending more time on a regular basis managing their careers. I have been giving a presentation on The Modern Resume for a couple years and I find more and more people interested in attending and finding new ways to formalize their professional development. Not everyone will actually make the effort,  but new tools like social networking sites make it easier, and I regularly find more people that are spending time on the professional development in their lives.

    I recently submitted a pre-conference session to the upcoming SQL Rally event next May with Chris Shaw that deals with Finding Your Dream Job. I am still surprised that it was accepted, but it seems more and more people want to get career related information along with the technical sessions at various events. Voting is open for the sessions, which will be an interesting test in and of itself. Are there enough people that will pay for a professional development session alongside the other technical sessions submitted? Grant Fritchey has a great one on Query Tuning and Brian Kelley has one on security. Tough competition.

    Whether or not Chris’ and my session is accepted doesn’t matter. I’m excited that the topic is even under consideration, and that there are two other great sessions from Joe Webb and Kevin Kline. I would urge you to vote, and vote honestly. Let us know what you truly think is worth paying for and valuable for your career.

    Steve Jones