Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Open Arms

    This past Monday night was the annual networking dinner that Andy Warren and I put on before the PASS Summit. Actually “put on” is a bit of an overstatement. We pick a location, call them to ask if a large group can come in, and send out an invitation. People learn about it and if they can, they come and meet people and buy their own food or drinks.

    Apparently people still like the idea as we had over 200 people fill up the Buffalo Wild Wings at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte. I stood out front for 45 minutes or so, greeting people and making sure they knew were to go. I bet I shook more than 100 hands in that time, introducing myself to at least half of the people and greeting the others that I’ve known for years. I probably got 50 hugs as well during a long night. I didn’t get a chance to eat dinner until 10pm.

    Despite the main event not starting until Wednesday, a lot of people were in town early. Some had pre-conference sessions scheduled, some arrived early to sight-see and adjust to the new time zone, and quite a few attended our SQL in the City on Monday and weren’t even attending the larger conference. All of them came to meet others on Monday night.

    It’s an amazing happy hour opportunity for people to meet each other. Andy and I try to make the even welcoming, introducing people to each other whenever we have the chance. We encourage everyone to not just sit with their friends, but meet 3-5 new people and have a short conversation.

    I think it works well and even though I’m not attending the conference, I did want to make it to this event and I met some new people that I’ll remember in the future. @sqlhammer and Erroll from Charlotte are two that stand out, but I had lots of short conversations with others that are too numerous to mention.

    If you come to the conference next year, think about attending our Monday night event. If you don’t, think about going early (or staying late) at your local user group and doing a little networking. If you go to a SQL Saturday, be sure to say hi to at least 3 new people.

    Steve Jones

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    Today’s 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.

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  • Union Benefits

    This editorial was originally published on Mar 19, 2009. It is being re-run today as Steve is away at SQL in the City.

    I know lots of you don’t think unions are good, they create inefficiencies, etc., etc., blah, blah. We’ve debated that topic before and I’m not sure that anyone would change their mind.

    Suspend those thoughts for a moment. Not because you’re wrong, but because I want you to have a bit of fun this Friday. For this Friday’s poll:

    What benefits would you like if we were unionized?

    Stop and think about it for a minute. If you could argue for better benefits in your job, something that you think would make you more productive, or your company more productive, what kinds of things would you want your union to get?

    For a few thoughts, I was thinking along the lines of these things:

    • Retraining – Some guarantee of xx days of training for every xx years of service if they get rid of your technology?
    • Ergo Chairs – Or any other equipment that might make you more productive for your whole career
    • extra vacation – The US standard is still 2 weeks, though many companies combine sick and vacation time as one 3 week block. What would you want? 4 weeks? 5?
    • Medical benefits – Perhaps some base level of benefits that’s higher than you normally get?
    • Telecommuting – Some guarantee to commute xx days a year?
    • Professional Advancement – Certification payment with no penalty? Something else?
    • Overtime – Should we get paid for extra work?
    • Holidays – More holidays?
    • Retirement – Pensions?

    I’m not necessarily thinking that we’d get all these things, but it would be interesting to think about what benefits would benefit the group as a whole. So let us know what you think, and what might improve if we had a union. I’m not asking you to support one, or even calling for one, but just thinking a little outside the box.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    Everyday Jones

    The podcast feeds are now available atsqlservercentral.mevio.comto get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.

    Overall RSS Feed:  or now on iTunes! 

    Today’s 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.

    I really appreciate and value feedback on the podcasts. Let us know what you like, don’t like, or even send in ideas for the show. If you’d like to comment, post something here. The boss will be sure to read it.

  • Manners

    This editorial was originally published on Apr 6, 2009 and is being re-run as Steve is away on the SQL in the City 2013 tour.

    I’m not entirely sure of what to call this rant, but I settled on “Manners” and am going with that. This was inspired after some recent events both on SQLServerCentral and other sites around the Internet.

    We have “The Thread” on the site. I won’t link it in here since if you haven’t heard of it, I see no reason to disturb it with lots of extra reads. It might be the longest thread on the Internet, and certainly is the longest one here at SQLServerCentral. It’s got thousands of replies and tens of thousands of reads. The thread started when someone asked the regular contributers on the site if it seemed that the questions being asked were getting worse. The first poster wondered if people were trying less, unable or unwilling to search, and unwilling to try and help themselves before posting a question.

    There have been a lot of people who are regular contributors here, Gilamonster, Jeff Moden, RBarryYoung, LynnPettis, Bob Hobvious, Grant Fritchey, and more (apologies if I’ve missed people that post a lot), have been going through this thread, often venting and complaining about the way questions are asked, joking with each other, and providing examples of problems they see. It’s been a fun ride for those participating in the thread, or at least I think it has.

    None of these people are paid for their time and efforts, at least not directly. I guess I get paid, but I don’t have to be in the forums helping people as much as I am. Most of us do it because we want to help others, teach them something, and give back to the community that helped us grow and learn earlier in our careers. That was the reason I started this site with Andy and Brian: to help others.

    What’s amazing to me is how often I feel that I’m babysitting someone on this site in trying to lead them to an answer. I feel like I’m trying to teach 5 year olds about SQL Server some days.

    I know that people don’t like it when I don’t just give them the answer. I get frustrated sometimes when I post on other subjects, but I also understand I’m getting free help, and as long as I get “help”, I can deal with the hints and links given. I expect I might have to do a little more research or reading to figure things out. That’s what I try to do, give people hints, references, and links, to help them learn. I expect them to do a little work as well. I’m happy to help, but I don’t think I should be giving out free consulting to people.

    Why the rant today? I had someone post offensive language in a thread that I removed. I posted to say that we don’t like unprofessional language or personal attacks, but I also added I felt that the person responding to the thread hadn’t really provided enough information. The person got upset with me, which is fine, but they also frustrated me a bit in that they refused to acknowledge that they might be in the wrong, especially after multiple others agreed.

    The bottom line is that you should treat other people the way you want to be treated. You may get into an argument with someone and that’s OK. Keep it professional and respectful. However if 3 or 4 people tell you that you’re approaching something wrong, or behaving badly, perhaps you ought to stop and consider if you are in the wrong, or acting inappropriately.

    Steve Jones

    Note: I started this rant as a podcast, and then wrote the editorial from that, so to see the raw footage, watch the podcast. It’s why this rant goes a little off-course.

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    Everyday Jones

    The podcast feeds are available atsqlservercentral.mevio.com. Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.

    You can also follow Steve Jones on Twitter:

    Overall RSS Feed:  or now on iTunes! 

    Today’s 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.

    I really appreciate and value feedback on the podcasts. Let us know what you like, don’t like, or even send in ideas for the show. If you’d like to comment, post something here. The boss will be sure to read it.

  • Beginner, Expert, or Both?

    It seems that there’s no shortage of interviewers complaining about the lack of qualified candidates for open positions. It seems to me that the best thing you could do to get a better job is work through all the articles and lots of forum posts from SQLServerCentral, complete all the exercises in your favorite SQL Server book, and improve your skills so that you shine in an interview. If most candidates are really that bad, it can’t be that hard to make yourself stand out with a little work.

    However it seems few people do that. In fact, it seems that quite often we find people that have 5 years of experience with SQL Server really have 2-4 months of experience repeated 15-30 times. What’s more disconcerting is that they don’t realize how much knowledge they lack.

    This article might provide some of the reasons why people think they’re more experienced than they are. They’re expert beginners, and since they can accomplish the things they’re asked to do at their jobs, they think they’re complacent. They have success because they’re not asked to do more, perhaps because their employer only needs a small fraction of SQL Server knowledge to keep their systems running along.

    I think this is a hard trend to break. Employers don’t want to pay you to learn skills that aren’t important to them, and they certainly don’t want to pay you to learn things that will move you to a new job. However that doesn’t mean you should have the same attitude.

    I think you should continue to expand your skills, grow your knowledge, and try new techniques. The best people in all professions continually question their current skills and techniques, looking for better ways to accomplish tasks. It’s good to use what works and ensure stability in your systems, but always be prepared to evolve if you find something that works better.

    And keep looking for ways to do better.

    Steve Jones

    Video and Audio versions

    Today’s 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.

    Follow Steve Jones on Twitter to find links and database related items and announcements.
    Steve Jones Windows Media Video ( 18.9MB) feed

    MP4 iPod Video ( 16.2MB) feed

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    Feeds are available at iTunes and Mevio

    To submit an article, rant or editorial,
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