Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • The Learning Plan for 2025

    I saw a post from Brent Ozar a couple of months ago promoting his Black Friday sale, which is really a Month-of-November-Training-Sale. I like that he does this, as I know it can take time to get purchases approved and not many techies want to spend a few thousand USD in hopes their company will reimburse them. Redgate likely would for me, but I don’t know many other employers that would reimburse the expense without prior approval.

    In the post, Brent outlines how you might spend your year working through his courses, learning more about various aspects of SQL Server. He plans out 11 months (Dec-Oct), and it’s a good flow going from understanding how things work to more advanced work in different areas. I’ve been in a few of his classes and I honestly think you might easily need a month if not 2-3 months to get through the various modules, practice using them, and cement in a few skills along the way.

    That’s around the rest of the things in your life. You do need to live your life, right? It’s not just work and training for work?

    I used to make a plan every Dec/Jan for the year, with some goals for learning and growing. I gave up a few years ago because I found the nature of my job meant my plan was likely not appropriate after March. Even going to quarterly goals was hard, as travel became a bit chaotic for me.

    As much as I like to set an example, for someone in their 50s with a busy job, the reality is I don’t know where my job takes me year to year, so planning is really hard. Plus, I find myself focusing on different aspects of technology or software sales as challenges arise. While I’m trying to work on my career, it’s more tactical in the sense that I worry about new things in Redgate month to month that can help me in my position.

    However, for many of you, you have a job that you know the parameters of, you know what types of things you’ll be asked to do, and more importantly, you know which of those things you were asked to do in the past, but struggled to get done at an expert level.

    In that case, have you made a learning plan? Are you setting aside time most (or every) week to further your career? If you’re young and single or married without kids, you definitely should spend time every week on your career. Doctors, lawyers, CPAs, and engineers have dedicated education requirements in their jobs, and they spend time on their careers. You ought to aim for at least a 3-4 hour a week commitment to yourself.

    If you have young kids, time is precious. While you might take a few years off, my view was that when my kids were 4-5, I could take some time to grow my career. In the those toddler/young schoolage years, this might only be an hour or two a week, but it should be something. As your kids grow, you can spend a bit more time.

    If you’ve got older kids, now is the time when you can prove you’re worth a higher salary. Dive deep into tech and show that you’re an expert. If your current employer doesn’t want to pay you, I’m sure someone will. While there are lots of people looking for jobs, and lots of unfilled positions, employers aren’t just hiring unless they are convinced someone really adds value. Learn to do this and you’ll have a fun, enjoyable twilight to your career.

    Think about your learning plan for 2025 and if you want to share, we’d love to hear it.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

    Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.

  • Republish: How Much AI Do We Need?

    I’m back today from holiday, but gone tomorrow. As I try to close down the year, I decided to re-run How Much AI Do We Need? as it was an interesting look back at a piece from 2020, when the LLM/GenAI hype wasn’t a thought in most people’s minds. Instead, the AI systems were simpler and more focused on specific siutations.

    I find myself thinking back a bit and thinking about the world back then and re-reading the linked article. In that one it seems like “smart” is more about better communication and coordination in the kitchen, and less about the appliances having any intelligence. Some of the image recognition items might lightly be called AI/ML work, but most of the added features aren’t.

    Re-read the piece and article and think about how much AI do you need, or want.

  • Republish: Choosing Sequences Over Identity

    It’s the start of the holiday season for me. I’m off all this week and a few next week, so I’m really done for the year.

    You get to re-read Choosing Sequences Over Identity.

  • Comforting Habits

    I was chatting with a friend recently about routines and some of the helpful or silly things we do. I mentioned that when I played adult baseball, we often had Sunday morning games and a routine of mine was to drive to town, stop at a 7-11, and get a large cup of coffee and an apple fritter. It was a comforting habit that I still have today, often stopping when I have a morning flight to do the same thing in the way to the airport.

    Only in Denver though, not when I’m flying out of other cities and returning home.

    At another job, I rode my bike to work. However, I’d drive Monday morning and leave my car at work, taking it home Friday afternoon. In between I’d commute on a bicycle 10-12 miles each way. On Monday, I’d buy a half dozen bagels for the week, which I’d leave in my office. After riding in and showering, I’d toast a bagel and have that with my coffee. It was a nice way to start the day while I scanned email or had a morning meeting.

    Apparently, many of my routines revolve around food.

    I have other habits, like waking up and checking my email before doing anything else. Not always, but most days I’ll stir, give up on trying to sleep, and scan email from bed to see what is in store for the day. I don’t always get up and go to work, but I can mentally prepare myself for how the workday will go. I’ve often found this helps me ease the way into the day, and I’m less stressed when I’ve broken the question of the day or had some other issue. I am prepared for what I’ll face in the next hour after relaxing with my wife for a bit longer.

    Routines not only bring us comfort, but they ground us in the chaos of the real world. Even if we have lost control of our work, with others pressuring us to meet deadlines or fix a broken system, a routine helps us to react calmly and not panic.

    Even during security or failure incidents, which can be very stressful, I’d start the issue with a blank notebook page, writing a few known facts down on paper and starting to think forward as to how I’d manage staff. Often this exercise had me making initial decisions about who would work now and who would go home to come back later and relieve people. This was before I knew the scope or details of the problem. Even though I often had to change my plan, having a plan to change gave me comfort.

    Think about the repetitive things you do on a daily or weekly basis. Think about the things you do in response to periodic events. What comforting habits do you have that help you get through the day or just bring a smile to your face.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.

    Note, podcasts are only available for a limited time online.