Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Daily Coping 27 Oct 2021

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

    Today’s tip is to find a new perspective on a problem you face.

    There are always problems we are dealing with in life. Some at work, some in our families, some might be personal. It’s easy to get locked into a particular view of an issue and not think more widely about how to tackle things.

    I actually have started to try and think differently about things, and part of the reason is this routine from Tom Segura (NSFW). The end is the best part, because he turns the entire story around. He looks at it from a new perspective. Rather than being insulted, he enjoys the routine.

    I recently had an issue at work. It was a problem with the way I interacted with another team, and I was feeling frustrated. In this case, I had to walk away from the computer for a bit and try to calm down.

    At some point I thought about this routine and decided to look at things a different way. This team wasn’t trying to be difficult, and they had their own issues related to my challenge. I decided to think about how I could approach the problem in a new way and try to get what I needed, as well as make things easier for this team.

    I made some progress, and I had to accept the problem a bit for the part I couldn’t change. However, the entire experience was better for me when I took a new approach.

  • Daily Coping 26 Oct 2021

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

    Today’s tip is to share a hopeful quote with a friend or colleague.

    I’m not sending this to anyone in particular, but sharing more widely here. I love flipping through quotes and usually send them to others on their Facebook birthday. Today, I want to share one that caught my eye and is a variation of others that I believe in:

    Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start. – Nido Qubein

    Things don’t always go our way, and sometimes the way forward from here feels overwhelming and tough. We can lament where we are, rather than looking forward and trying to figure out where we want to go.

    I often see this in software. We can get caught up in how we got here, or the problems of today, rather than looking forward for future solutions.

    Don’t be bound or defined by today. It’s one of the thousands of steps on a journey.

  • A Live Conference Experience at Data Minds Connect 2021

    Last week I was privileged to attend a live conference in Belgium. dataMinds Connect 2021 took place in Mechelen, just outside of Brussels. I had submitted months ago, was accepted, but didn’t know I’d actually get to go until late September. However, I was glad I went.

    A Normal Experience

    I’ve been able to live parts of my life across the last year, but many things were limited in some way. Either I couldn’t do some activity I expected, or everyone was masked and separated. I’m grateful for what I could do, even with restrictions, but I’ve missed the world since 2019. The exception for me was a volleyball tournament in Orlando in June. It was a busy convention center without masks; the type of event I went to regularly the last few years.

    dataMinds Connect 2021 was the first normal work event I’d attended since SQL Saturday #910 in Slovenia. This was a good sized event, 400+ people, and it felt good. People were interacting with each other, able to shake hands, see each other talking, and recognizing faces was a great experience.

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    I enjoyed being able to chat with people in person, watch body language, meet new friends and see ones that I’ve missed.

    There were multiple sessions during the day, with 15 minute breaks for coffee or a snack. I got to speak in front of a good crowd, was able to see their reactions to my talk, and interact with them.

    Communication and COVID Rules

    I’ve had this event on my schedule for months, and I was happy with the way it was handled. Benni De Jaere (@BenniDeJagere) had emailed early with information on the event, venue, travel, and accommodations. A few months ago he contacted me again, asking if I was coming and giving guidance on the local restrictions.

    Just before the event, we got another long email with all the details of what we needed to be concerned about, how to get tested, quarantine rules, etc.

    While the event did not publish a specific policy, they did note they were deferring to local regulations. Since those can change, and even government sites can struggle to keep coordinated, this was fine for me. Grant (@gfritchey) and I were communicating, trying to decide the rules we needed to follow. I went through the border first, so I let him know about my experience and how to find the testing center and then our plans for quarantine.

    Foreign travelers needed to be tested and show vaccine proof. From there, the city where the event was held (Mechelen) was fairly open. Brussels was more restricted, and I wore masks and abided by their rules while there.

    I understand some people being concerned about safety under this pandemic. I don’t expect events to act differently than their local area. If they do, then they need their specific restrictions published. If not, then we are old enough to check the local guidelines and decide if those are acceptable to us.

    Overall

    I think Benni and his crew did a great job of setting up and running an event. Almost no one has done this in 18 months, and despite the delay, they smoothly handled a large crowd of people at entry and throughout the day.

    I thoroughly enjoyed the event, the people, and the area. I had never been to Belgium before, but it’s on my list as a place to come back to in the future, hopefully at another dataMinds Connect.

  • Burning Out

    I haven’t burned out, but I’ve been close. There was a time a few years back when I was working a lot, traveling a lot, trying to watch activities with my kids, making time for my wife, and more. While I have had stretches were I feel like that (like the last month), usually I have calm periods that balance my out. Across about 18 months, I realized I hadn’t gotten enough breaks and worked with my boss to lighten the load.

    During the last 18 months under the pandemic, I’ve had a few busy times, and some stress, but overall, I’ve managed to cope well. My coping tips have helped, and I’ve made a conscious effort to demand less of myself and slow down. It helps that I work for a UK company that values balance and tries to ensure employees work hard, but not too hard. While I  sometimes struggle and get very busy, I do get to balance that out and relax at times.

    That hasn’t been the case for everyone this past year. There is a blog about developer burnout, noting that a lot of developers shouldered a larger workload during the pandemic. I think the move to remote work is stressful, and it can be hard to adjust to expectations, or know what we should expect. There is often a feeling when you work remotely that you need to do more, because no one else can see how hard you are working. There is also a temptation to take some of the time that you used to spend commuting and get a few “extra” things done each day.

    Many managers also haven’t known how to adapt to remote work and can add to stress with either more work, higher expectations, or a lack of awareness of how employees feel. They may unknowingly, or purposefully, make things worse. Add to all of this the challenges of managing kids, juggling noise in your workspace, and finding space to work with others in the house. It’s no wonder many people felt some burnout in the last year.

    The article gives some stages of burnout, a way to measure yourself, and some strategies for coping. While a lot of these may feel like common sense, when we are overwhelmed and busy, we often forget common sense. It’s easy to dismiss the effectiveness of simple strategies. It’s also easy to underestimate just how much better you will feel by taking even small steps to combat burnout. Even things you think might make a tiny difference can help.

    I know there are some very poor work environments and awful managers. If you are in these situations, I’d urge you to look hard to find a new position somewhere, anywhere. Even another bad job will give you a change of scenery and can help in the short term. Even in the poor jobs, however, I’ve often had others that felt the same way in my team or in a related team. Talking, sharing, and bonding with others in a similar situation can help, if for no other reason than you can share, vent, and empathize with each other.

    Burnout is a real problem among technology workers. It’s not a personal failure, but it is something that you have to recognize in your situation. It is also important to make changes and find ways to reduce the stress of your situation over time. There aren’t usually quick fixes, but there are ways to change your life to better handle the situation.

    If you are struggling, please reach out to friends, family, or others and get help. Things can get better.

    Steve Jones

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