Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • The Value of Your Time

    Today’s editorial was originally published on Feb18, 2009. It is being re-published as Steve is on vacation.

    I was talking with a friend the other day that’s in sales and he was working with a client on some new software upgrade. This is a long term relationship and my friend manages the client’s use of his company’s products, which are custom software programs. There was a mismatch of expectations in the presentation of a new product and the client wanted my friend on site for a day right away. So my friend sat around for a few hours waiting for approval to book travel and fly across the country for a two day trip to the client’s site. Since this was a trip being made with less than seven days notice, the CEO had to approve the travel.

    The CEO of a 3,000+ person company had to approve a $1,500-2,000 trip for a sale worth tens of millions of dollars in revenue.

    Now I might be exaggerating a bit how silly this seems because who knows how many trips get asked for each week. And having a policy around travel is sensible since people might abuse the company a bit in trips. But should the CEO be doing this? How much time and money is wasted by having the CEO look at these? Either he spends time on them, which is an incredibly wasteful use of time for someone that should be strategically thinking about running the business at a macro, not micro, level. Or he rubber stamps them, in which case he’s trusting his subordinates to do their due diligence. In which case he shouldn’t rubber stamp the approval; let the subordinates handle the decision making.

    As a DBA, I’ve always been relatively well paid in most companies. Not $365k a year well paid, but making more money than a good portion of the IT staff. And I’ve always recognized that there are things I could do that waste the company’s money, and my time, if I’m doing them. You wouldn’t want me to take a part printers to figure out why paper is jamming any more than you’d want me to empty the trash cans every night as part of my daily work. You want me tuning SQL Servers, testing upgrades, writing code and more. That’s not to say I can’t refill a printer with paper, make coffee, or help someone solve a permissions problem, but it shouldn’t be something I do on a regular basis.

    Each of us provides value to our companies, and while we should be willing to pitch in and help with most any job, we also should recognize that we are most efficient if we do those things that are the best use of our time.

    Trust your people to do their jobs, and deal with things later if they don’t, but trust them up front.

    Steve Jones

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  • I have a dream

    It seems fitting with the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech that I would write about discrimination this week in my piece “Stunned”. There’s a long discussion over at SQLServerCentral, and along with a phone call with a friend, I thought a bit about what I wrote.

    I wasn’t present for the quote. I don’t know if there was nuance, or intent to joke, intent to annoy the listener, or something else. The written word doesn’t convey everything, and I decided not to dig deeper, identify the speaker, or take any actions as it’s all hearsay to me.

    However, I do think something along the lines of what you read, was said. I think there are still people that think this way, just as there are people that think various minorities are not competent, trustworthy, or something else.

    I have a dream that we will get beyond this as anything other than a rare occurrence. I don’t believe we will ever eliminate racism, or sexism, or really any type of discrimination. But perhaps we can reduce it to a very, very tiny level, get more people to think about there inherent prejudices and work to overcome them.

    I’m prejudiced in some ways. I recognize that and try to not let it affect my actions. I try to treat people fairly, and professionally. I try to treat them as I’d expect they will treat me. I want to accept them as they are, work with them with their strengths and weaknesses, and try to ensure I make an effort to increase diversity in my life.

    My intent today was to raise awareness. I wanted people to think about the actions, to talk about issues, and recognize that there are still problems in the world, including our tiny SQL Server, data professional world, that we should deal with.

    My hope is that we work to ensure this type of attitude is not tolerated. I hope for a frank discussion at user groups that note discrimination is not a part of the group. I hope that both minority groups (females, races, etc) and event/group leaders make efforts to include more disparate people. I hope more women and others make an effort to join in the community and share their knowledge. I hope more leaders choose to include more diverse speakers. If you have two people that are qualified, make the choice for diversity some of the time, rather than perhaps the more well known or safe choice.

    I hope we grow closer, not further apart, as a community.

  • Stunned

    I’m stunned, and I’m not releasing many details here. Not because I condone this, but because the who did this isn’t nearly as important as the message and the behavior. I didn’t press for more details when I heard about it and I’m not interested in learning specifics.

    A user group leader responded to an inquiry with: “We don’t want female speakers. Our users only want to hear technical content.”

    First, what the <insert your own expression here>? Second, seriously? Third, WTF? I’m actually stunned that in 2013 we have someone that doesn’t believe that female speakers can deliver technical content.

    We will never eradicate prejudice and bigotry from the world. As humans, we all have our own beliefs, likes, dislikes, and our prejudices. We form impressions of people, of groups, even of events, and those impressions influence how we view the world and interact with others. Some of us change our minds over time while some of us cling stubbornly to our stances. There will always be some friction in our dealings with others, depending on how we view the person.

    When I see quotes like this, I know we need groups like the Women in Technology that advocate for more participation and fair treatment of their members. I had someone express concern a few years ago that this type of group might fragment our SQL Server community. What happens if we have Black Men in Technology, or Chinese Women in Technology, or any othe=r subset of our members. I think those groups would be fine, and necessary, whenever we have a group of people that struggle with their place in the the community. Organizations can help their members to improve their own skills are handling situations and improving the way they work within the larger community.

    I firmly believe that we are all better off when we have a diverse community, with all types of people, a variety of thoughts, ideas, opinions, and most importantly, teachers. It takes some effort from all groups to consider and incorporate that diversity into our user groups, conferences, and other events. There are so many talented, technical people around. I’d encourage organizers and attendees to choose and watch a wide variety of speakers. Take a chance on someone that you might not normally consider. You never know when the person you prejudge will surprise you in the end.

    Steve Jones

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  • Cool Projects

    I had a conversation recently with a developer that was working on a rather neat problem. This had to do with a financial system and it involved some complex calculations and real time interactions with a variety of systems. It was important for their company, and a lot of pressure was on this developer to not only deliver this software quickly, but also to have it perform at a very high level. This particular person was using Red Gate’s ANTS Performance Profiler to dig into their code, feeling pressure to make it as efficient as possible.

    However this person was also enjoying themselves. It was a challenge, and it was a cool project.

    I know this community is made up of people working in all sorts of industries, in a variety of roles. We develop many different kinds of software. Some may be for employers, some may be for ourselves, some may be for a side business, but  across that spectrum of work, there are some interesting applications.

    What cool things are you working on?

    It might not be software. Perhaps you’re working on an interesting data application, like a super collider. Maybe you work on some gaming software, or you manage a system that makes people’s lives better, easier, or even possible. I’m sure more than a few of you work on some real time systems, which have all kinds of data challenges.

    Let us know this week what type of interesting work you’re doing.

    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 ( 16.1MB) feed

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    Feeds are available at iTunes and Mevio

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