Tag: career

When I was younger, I had a variety of jobs, but in most of the positions I had to work hard for stretches. Really hard, as in more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week. Often as I was starting a new position, it took some time for me to develop some understanding, some skill, and some muscle memory. In some jobs, especially in restaurants, I also had to build the physical skills to be on my feet for many hours.

In technology, I’ve often found myself unsure of how to approach a new position, aware I had knowledge gaps about how things worked, and often, I was naïve or ignorant of some piece of technology my employer used. Even at jobs where I started as a developer or DBA on a known platform (ASP or SQL Server), I sometimes encountered some aspects of the technology that I hadn’t used in the past (like clustering).

In those situations, something I learned from my parents and a few youth coaches came to mind. I needed to bust my butt to be successful. The lessons I learned weren’t expressed so politely, but they boiled down to putting in extra time and focus, and continuing on that path until I was competent in the eyes of someone else, usually my boss.

I’ve encountered many people in the last decade that have much to learn. I’ve met far too many that didn’t understand their environments as well as I’d expect them to as a manager. I have encountered far too many people who wish they could be more skilled in some way, but they haven’t made a commitment do the work to further that wish. I’ve met far too few people who are working to improve themselves on a regular basis.

How do we teach people to grind away at something to improve themselves?

I don’t know. I’ve tried to motivate people, I try to give them examples, I’ve tried to provide suggestions. It seems that many people have lost the drive to invest in themselves to prepare for the future. Too many want their boss to train them and then re-train them when they don’t use a skill and forget it. Or they want their time in a position to count as experience. Or they want their boss to give them time out of their 40 hours, without having to make their own investment of time at night or on weekends.

Skill and experience don’t magically appear. They take work. They take grinding away, making mistakes, achieving small successes, taking a step backward, then driving forward in new ways. It’s effort, and it’s time. Read any story about a person who’s achieved success and you’ll find tales of study, work, practice on their own time.

If you want something different in your career, or in life, you have to work at that thing. Make a plan, but then work at it. Give up some leisure time. Not all, but some. Give up something fun to achieve something else later. Learn to sharpen your saw, polish your craft, grow your marketability, whatever you want to call it.

Just start doing it.

If you want to read a few examples, I have a short series of posts on grinding away at life.

Steve Jones

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

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

It seems there’s quite a dichotomy in the technology workforce. On one hand I hear about the Great Resignation where many employees are leaving their jobs because of RTO (return to office) mandates or some other dissatisfaction with their job. On the other, I’ve seen quite a few people who were laid off and are struggling to find new positions. On the third hand, there is no shortage of companies who report they are struggling to find and hire talented people for some positions.

I don’t quite know what to think, but I do know that employment seems to be harder to come by. If you are looking for a job, I believe you need your own sustainable learning plan. If your organization can’t find qualified talented staff, then the organization definitely needs a continuous learning plan.

I saw a piece on creating a continuous learning culture, which seems more suited for managers than technology workers, but there are a few good pieces of advice. First, set some goals. I write about this often, and I’ve seen others recommend this as well. Think about where you could improve your skills, and where you see demand for skills, and then start working backward on a plan to gain those skills. Think about where you want to be in 6 months or a year and build a plan to get there.

Another good piece of advice is to learn within your flow of work, which often means spending a little more time deepening or broadening your skills in an area where you are already working. If you’re writing a query, analyze the plan and reads and see if you could tune it to run more efficiently. Read about those skills and practice them, which deepens your skills. If you don’t know much about query tuning, then broaden your experience and learn about a new operator, new index, new hint, and experiment. Then you have a wider view of what possibilities there are in query tuning.

More importantly, build the habit of curiosity and experimentation, which is what will help you drive continuous learning throughout your day. It’s good to look at new things, but don’t forget to sharpen your existing skills, practice being better at the work you already do, and find a balance that ensures you are growing while still meeting your other commitments, both at work and away from work.

There’s an old joke that if you train people they might leave, but if you don’t train them, they’ll stay. For organizations struggling with talent, embrace some investment in current employees, at least those who have potential. Grow them and you might find that the person you’ve been struggling to hire is already working for you. They just needed a little boost.

Steve Jones

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

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