Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Winning

    “From the beginning to the end, losers lose, winners win” – 50 Cent

    It’s not always true, and there are no guarantees, but it is clear that those who put effort into improving themselves, often find more opportunities and the chance to succeed.  The definition of success may vary among all of us, but I would guess that succeeding for most of us has something to do with accomplishing more in some endeavor. Whether that’s getting more work finished, or improving the quality of our craftsmanship, it’s a movement forward. It’s winning.

    “Winners train, losers complain” – Brian Kelley

    I was reminded that not everyone looks at the world as a war, or as a zero sum game. There are lots of people that view the world as an environment where we can each improve, and help each other do better than we might on our own. However we must work on our own. We must take the responsibility to do something, not just talk about it, and not wait passively by as life passes us by. We also can’t just complain about our jobs, about the demands we face, the compensation that’s lacking, or anything else.

    This industry gives us the opportunities to change positions, learn new skills, and grow our compensation faster than many other fields. However it’s up to us to make the effort, stop making excuses, and start getting things done.

    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 ( 15.4MB) feed

    MP4 iPod Video ( 18.7MB) feed

    MP3 Audio ( 3.8MB) feed

    Feeds are available at iTunes and Mevio

    To submit an article, rant or editorial,
    log in to the Contribution Center

  • The School Year

    It’s August and for many people in the world that means that school will be starting sometime this month. My children have a little over two weeks left before they begin, with the mourning for the end of summer break already beginning. Some of us that work at a career for a living will also be starting school. People are pursuing advanced degrees, such as a PhD or MBA, while still managing a full time job, with their workload about to increase this fall as well. However most of us aren’t in either of these situations, and we go to work each day, but come home and (hopefully) enjoy the rest of our lives with family, pursuing hobbies, or some other activity.

    However many of us do have some leisure time that we could redirect to another endeavor. Working in technology can be a stressful, time consuming job at times, but it can also be a fairly easy job, physically. Many of us understand our environments and can often complete our jobs in a reasonable number of hours each week. It’s also a job that often compensates us very well. However it’s a field that demands regular skill improvement for success, security, and opportunity.

    With that idea in mind, I wanted to ask you to think about the rest of the coming year. If you aren’t overloaded at work, and you treat the next few months as the beginning of a school term, how would you answer this question?

    What will you learn this semester?

    Learning new skills can make your job easier (Powershell, administrators?). It might bring new opportunities or projects your way (Powerpivot/Powerview/Hadoop). It might even find you a new job, one that suits you better in some way if you blog about what you are learning and build a project. Learning is almost never time wasted, if you have the time in your life. Consider taking on a small project, working your way through a Stairway series or book, or learning some new skill this fall.

    This time of year is busy for me. I have eight more flights and events booked across the next few months, and a few new presentations to develop and practice. However I’m hoping to find a few minutes each day to work my way through a C# book and improve my skills in that area. I haven’t built any front end software in years, apart from simple web interfaces, and I’d like to bone up some skills, which might bring new opportunities, but will also benefit my job where I need to create some content around the Deployment Manager product, in C#, and hopefully well done. No matter how it turns out, I’m sure I’ll have learned something, and probably had some fun.

    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 ( 19.8MB) feed

    MP4 iPod Video ( 23.1MB) feed

    MP3 Audio ( 4.7MB) feed

    Feeds are available at iTunes and Mevio

    To submit an article, rant or editorial,
    log in to the Contribution Center

  • Hiring Heterogeneously

    I wrote recently about tech interviews and hiring, and even on an interesting interviewing technique for senior people. However we need to hire more than just senior people. We need to hire junior people, and intermediate people. Those roles are important for both growing the experience of your staff, and not getting caught with a “” as a bottleneck or single point of failure. Not that’s not Brent Ozar, though someone with his talent might be the single point of failure in many organizations.

    Not everyone can be a superstar-expert-architect that decides how the system is built. Not all architects should spend time coding basic insert/update/delete code or adding clustered indexes to tables. We need a variety of talent levels that can get complete different types of tasks. There is tedious administrative work, supporting roles, necessary, though unexciting work like reviewing security, logs, audits, and more. While you can automate much of this busy work, there are still tasks that we must assign to people.

    There’s another consideration as well in hiring that all too often people overlook. Hiring too many people that are too similar, who may think alike, who may view problems the same way can lead to an environment that doesn’t grow and expand, that loses it’s creativity over time. There’s a great quote that says “Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much” (Walter Lippmann). It’s important to have a diversity of opinions, and when you hire new people, you should consider this. You want talented people, and people that get along, but not necessarily all thinking about problems in the same way.

    The world is a richer place for the diversity we have, and varying opinions, thoughts and ideas. We don’t all get along, but many of us can work together with mutual respect, considering each others’ viewpoints as we work to build solutions to the problems we face.

    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 ( 14.8MB) feed

    MP4 iPod Video ( 19.6MB) feed

    MP3 Audio ( 3.6MB) feed

    Feeds are available at iTunes and Mevio

    To submit an article, rant or editorial,
    log in to the Contribution Center

  • The Vacation Struggle

    poolIt’s a little over halfway through the year and once again I’m struggling to get away from work and get through my vacation. It’s not that my boss won’t give me time off, which is a common complaints from many workers in the technology industry. Instead it’s my fault. I’ve got a lot of ongoing work to get done, various commitments for events, preparation for travel, and most of all, I enjoy my job. I’ll add that a few family events have prevented us from executing on vacation plans along the way as well.

    Skipping vacation is not the best way to go through your career, and during the last month I’ve stopped to take stock of the situation and do something about it. I have a generous vacation allowance and there’s no need to hoard it, saving for a once-a-year-two-week trip. I have some family coming into town soon, and I booked a few days off while they are here. I’ve also extended one of my trips, planning on a mini-vacation with my daughter. I plan on saving some days to ski near the end of the year, but I’ll also be taking some long weekends and trying to recharge my interest in life, coming back to work refreshed.

    It can be hard to plan and take vacation, and I’m sure many of you have tips and tricks that you’ll share on how you get away from work and enjoy your life. Many of us see our careers as important, necessary, and hopefully fulfilling, but we also need breaks away from the stress and pressures of work.

    We should work in order to live, and enjoy, the rest of our lives. Time with family, friends, hobbies, and more is important. Life passes by quickly, and sometimes unexpectedly. One of the things I’ve learned as I age is that each day is precious, and that could end at any time. I seem to lose friends and acquaintances  all too frequently. All too often I find people passing that are well below retirement age, which is sad, tragic, and a reminder that life is short.

    Take your vacation. Get away from work when you can, if for no other reason than to see what else in the world there is for you to experience.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

    We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.