Voice of the DBA

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 give your time, energy, or attention to help someone in need.

I try to help others, in my field, kids in sports, my family, etc. I have mixed feelings about my efforts. They’re good, and they do help people, but in many cases these are people who aren’t really in need. Many tech professionals are doing well in the world. Most of the kids I coach are relatively privileged.

I do try to volunteer, so I’m scheduling a build day for Habitat for Humanity. I’ve volunteered for them before, and I had planned to do a day quarterly this year. Work and life got away from me early, then some health struggles in Q2. Some busy times, but I’m actually scheduling my time on 15 Sep to go work for them.

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 an article, book, or podcast you found helpful.

This would be an article or book for me. I don’t regularly do podcasts.

I have been reading Good Strategy Bad Strategy for work. This is a book that guides a lot of what Redgate does as a company, but it’s an interesting book for thinking about how you guide an organization. I wasn’t sure this would be helpful to me, but it really makes me think about how people present their strategy, what it is, and how they tie that to goals.

It’s harder than you think, but this has me stopping and re-evaluating things. Make me more conscious of my recommendations to customers and others.

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 give people the gift of your full attention.

I have been making it a point to do this, especially with my wife. In the past, she might make a comment or want to tell me something while we’re watching TV. I often might be unwinding with a game on my phone, but I’ve decided to put my phone down and pause the TV to listen.

I’m also making a point to put my phone away, or not check it when someone is talking to me. If I’m expecting some call, I might make a check, but I’m going out of my way to dedicate my attention.

I’m also doing this on my Zoom calls where I’m an active participant. I shrink all other windows on my machine (Outlook, Twitter, etc.) and focus on the call. If I’m just listening in on some update, that might not be the case.