Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • When Are Your Breaks?

    As I work through 2024, I found myself doing a little more vacation planning this year than in previous ones. In 2022 I traveled quite a bit, but my wife went with me often. We went to Europe 5 times that year and added quite a few vacation days around my work trips. My wife thought that was a great year.

    Last year, 2023, was different. I traveled more (36 trips), with most of them being short. When I traveled that much, I wanted to end trips quickly and get back home. I learned that was too many, and also too disruptive for life. I got behind on things I needed to do at home, my wife went with me less because many trips were all work, and I lacked energy from the pace of moving all over the world.

    As a result, my boss and I are more closely watching my travel schedule, and I’m consciously working to ensure I take some breaks between trips. Part of that is doing some planning. So far this has me reducing the number of trips (10 in H1), but also including 3 good-sized vacations away from work during that time.

    Note: don’t feel too sorry for my travel load. I’ll get a holiday each in the US, Europe, and Australia.

    I know a lot of people like to schedule their vacations at similar times each year. The end-of-year holidays are often a time when many people travel, but I know some people who take time every June, others every August, often corresponding with school breaks for children, family reunions, or some other event.

    When do you like to take your vacation? Are you a many-long-weekends-through-the-year person? Do you go on one long trip a year? Love holidays to get away or stay home and work because work is quiet?

    I don’t know if it matters, but I’m always interested in what others do and why. I prefer more, shorter vacations, but convince me why your long trip is better. Tell me the amazing things/places you’ve done/seen. Maybe I’ll get some ideas for a future trip.

    Steve Jones

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

  • The Code Freeze

    One of the ideas behind DevOps is that we minimize the time between code commit and deployment to production. We want to avoid work-in-progress and bottlenecks to getting our software into the hands of customers. This has led a lot of companies to release more often, albeit with smaller sets of features. The total number of things delivered under DevOps might not be greater, but it often is more targeted to those things our customers want/need/use.

    However, the idea of releasing often means that we try not to stack up too much work before deploying it. What does that mean for holidays and the code freezes or no-deploy periods that many companies have? How do you implement a code freeze under DevOps?

    I read an interesting series on code freezes (partially paid content: part 1, part 2, part 3), and it looks at some of the implementations, data from surveys, and pros/cons of implementing a code freeze.

    Two things here. First, I like code freezes as it gives staff a break. Two, doing this in a way that doesn’t just shift work (and stress) is hard. Do you have code freezes or deployment restrictions at your company? Do you like them?

    The post has lots of metrics from various companies, some known, some anonymous. It seems that for those companies using code freezes, they help employees take a break, but not everyone takes a break, which means some work is done and merges after the code freeze are problematic. For those who don’t mandate a code freeze, less work is done when people are gone, but some work continues and is released.

    I think the natural flow of work is that when fewer people are available, less work gets done. Poor management (or a hero complex) might overload the staff still working, but that doesn’t work long term. It might work now, given there is an oversupply of tech people and fewer jobs, but when things change, people will leave those positions, and lower quality, or at least less knowledgeable people, will cause problems for those firms.

    I’m not a fan of code freezes, but I am a fan of understanding that staff needs a break. Lots of people want to take time off during holidays, especially those with children who want to celebrate or travel. Others might be fine working and want to catch up on work, refactor things, or maybe address tech debt. I’ve been in both situations, and I hope organizations can adapt to both situations, though without sacrificing quality. We still need good code review and testing, and if there isn’t the staff to do those things, then delay merging code.

    The one thing that stood out to me was the learning that changing the pace is good for humans. If you’re in the habit of releasing every week (or day or whatever), moving to a different cadence for some time is good for you. Just as high-pressure work can’t be sustained for a long time, very slow periods aren’t good. However, both have their places as a change of pace. A high-pressure situation might be necessary to meet a business goal (or solve a problem). A low-pressure time might be a good time to think, experiment, and perhaps innovate.

    Or just fix and refactor some poorly designed technical debt.

    Do you want a time when you aren’t trying to get code to production, either as a dev or operations person? Or do you like to have your job predictable and work in the same pattern year-round? Let me know today.

    Steve Jones

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

  • Republish: The First Rule

    I’m finishing up a volleyball tournament in Salt Lake City today, on holiday until I get home late tonight.

    You get to re-read The First Rule while I’m taking stats and trying to win a few games.

  • When is it time for a new job?

    I subscribe to quite a few newsletters, and one of them is for job hunters. I have a great job, maybe the best job for me, but I like to keep in touch with what’s going on because I, well, I have job insecurity and worry about being without a job. I think this is leftover from childhood. I also want to know how to help others in finding their dream job.

    Recently there was a question asking when it was time for a new job How can you tell (for yourself) when you should be seeking new opportunities? It might not be easy to recognize for many of you. Perhaps you don’t realize there are other opportunities you might appreciate because you’re comfortable. Perhaps you’re the frog in water that’s being heated so slowly that you don’t realize how poor your current situation is for your health.

    Earlier in my career I was constantly looking for new opportunities. Whether that was within my current employer or outside, I was looking every month for other jobs, asking people what they liked about their position or employer, and regularly looking to increase my salary. I was working hard to drive my career forward in my 20s, both with opportunities to grow and more compensation.

    In my 30s, I had children. They became important, and while I was aware of opportunities, I wasn’t actively looking to move unless I found myself in a very poor situation. Even then, I tolerated a couple of very poor managers for months because I had no options, little energy to look, and felt resigned at times. I worked on my career, but lightly. At some point, I somewhat fell into owning a business (with partners) with SQL Server Central. I had good and bad jobs, high and low stress, but I didn’t do enough to stop and think about my current situation at various points in time.

    In my 40s, I found a great employer in Redgate, a company run the way I’d want to run my own company. I’ve been there 16 years, and I don’t ever want to look for a job. I still evaluate how I feel, and I appreciate the ability to log my feelings periodically in Thymometrics, which helps me decide if I’m satisfied. This is a service that lets you rate your position in many ways. I question myself, regularly, as I fill out the form and I often look at the historical trends. I measure those graphs against how I feel that day and decide if I need to make any changes in how I approach my job.

    I’m older now, approaching retirement though not anytime soon. I don’t want to look for any more jobs, and I love the one I have. Thymometrics verifies this. My job has changed over the years, evolving to better help me support Redgate’s direction. Fortunately, I’ve enjoyed those changes. However, I do always keep an eye on my friends’ jobs and am aware of other opportunities. While I don’t expect to move, I’m always lightly looking. It pays to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

    I still touch my resume a few times a year and try to keep it up to date. I recommend you do the same.

    Steve Jones

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