Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Getting Fired

    Have you ever been fired from a job? I hope most of you never have as it’s a somewhat traumatizing experience. I’ve been let go from one (and asked to leave another), and even though I didn’t like the job and wasn’t sorry to be gone, I didn’t like getting fired.

    Awhile back I saw Brent Ozar ask the question on Twitter: “when do you fire a DBA?”. There were a number of answers, and he ended up writing a post that summarized some of the reasons as responses. You can read the post, and the various reasons. I think for most of them, I’d disagree if any incident were the first occurrence of the situation. I know people will make mistakes, and if I don’t forgive accidents, I’ll never have anyone trust me as a manager.

    I also don’t think you let someone go for ignorance. They might never have had to deal with a situation. I don’t think you let them go if they don’t dig deep into systems and find problems. It’s always possible they haven’t gotten to the one item that causes a disaster.

    To me there are two certain places where I’d let someone go. The first is willfully taking part in any illegal activity. I don’t think an officer of an organization can allow that to take place. The second is more subjective. I would have to let you go when you’ve repeatedly shown that you’re not becoming a better employee and making the same mistakes over and over again.

    Failure to learn is not an option.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Mevio . feed

    The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.

  • Inspiring Change

    This editorial was originally published on Nov 5, 2009. It is being re-run as Steve is on vacation.

    I attended the Women in Technology luncheon for the first time at the PASS Summit on Wednesday. My plan was to put in a short appearance and then head to meet some of the Microsoft manageability team to give them feedback on SQL Server. There are times where you realize that something is happening that would be hard to recreate later. I ended up staying at the luncheon.

    There seems to be a decline in engineering, science, and technology degrees and interest in the US in general. The Women in Technology group is concerned with finding ways to interest, excite, and grow the number of women in technology. The panel had a number of women active in technology, sharing their stories and trying to inspire others. It’s a message that I think bears repeating, and gives you the opportunity to break down the stereotypes that exist with women in technology.

    I heard someone say that no young girl wants to be Dilbert. Young men seem to be able to handle that stereotype better than others, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because it’s more socially acceptable for men to be geeks?

    The power of role models is undeniable.  We see that all the time with movie stars, athletes and more. However many of us are inspired by others closer to us. Authors and speakers we meet at the PASS Summit. Technologists that create and sell a company let us dream that we might do the same. Each of us that enjoys our job, and makes a good living, could inspire a young person to consider a career in this field. Just sharing your vision of what’s exciting to you might change their mind.

    I thought the women in technology luncheon was a great event, and I look forward to it next year. I’d encourage the rest of you to give it a try and see if you can inspire a young girl, a minority, or a child you know to consider a career in technology.

    Steve Jones

  • Bad Days

    We all have them. As DBAs, there could be many bad days in our career. We poke fun at one of them with our first humorous DBA Team story this year. Hopefully you enjoy that one and smile. I know I got a kick out of reading it when got the first draft.

    However that’s not a really bad day for me. I’ve had some bad days at work involving corruption, missing backups, hardware failures, viruses, and more. Typically they involve fewer car crashes and political games than the DBA Team deals with, but they’re almost as stressful and more than a few have stretched well into the night.

    This week, I’d like to commiserate with you. I’d like to hear about the hard stories that you can now look back on with a smile (or grimace), having managed to move beyond the situation.

    What’s been a really bad day in your DBA career?

    Or perhaps you’ve got a bad development story, an administrator story or something else. What was a time when you thought your career might be over, or you might lose your job? When did you feel a high level of stress over a situation that you thought might overwhelm you? Was there a time you might leave this industry?

    I’m not looking to bring up bad memories, and please remember to be professional with your stories. However I’ve found writing things down can be cathartic. Perhaps you’ve held onto some anxiety for years, or fear about a repeat. Perhaps a little sharing, and empathy from the community, will help you feel better about the situation.

    As always, if you’d like to share anonymously, feel free to send a note to sjones at this domain and I’ll post your story without your name.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Mevio . feed

    The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.

  • The Worst Code

    This piece was written awhile ago by Jeff Atwood, but I saw a mention about it recently. It’s about software developers hating software. It’s a fun piece, and written a bit tongue-in-cheek, though with a lot of truth in there. Certainly lots of the “bundled software” that come with gadgets is unnecessary and poorly tested. That’s sad, as there is the chance to add value to products if the software is well written, and perhaps, open sourced.

    However the thing that caught my eye was the ending. Mr. Atwood says that if a developer in an interview doesn’t say the worst code they’ve seen lately is their own, then they may not be a competent developer. I hope that part is also a joke, and I suspect it is. Though I also think that it’s a healthy attitude for people to see room for improvement in most of their endeavors.

    No matter what type of task you are performing, and certainly programming is an area many of us focus, complacency is a poor way to approach your work. We know we won’t be perfect, we know we’ll make mistakes, we know there’s room for improvement, and we know we NEED TO GET THE PROJECT DONE. The balance we strike in moving forward should be accomplishing tasks, learning what we did right and wrong, doing more of the former (and less of the latter) in the future, all while taking pride in the work we do well.

    Certainly some people are obsessive and perfectionists. There’s probably another few choice words some of you have for those individuals, but most of us need to balance our desire to build something amazing, with the necessity of completing work. We also need those little wins that come from having our work solve problems, even if we’d build software better the next time. The important thing is that you try to do better the next time.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.7MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Mevio . feed

    The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.