Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • What Do You Drop?

    Many years ago I was training for a triathlon. I had competed in the Sandman Triathlon the previous year in Virginia Beach and wanted to do it again. I had a young child, work was busy, and I was struggling to find time to swim, bike, and run every week. One night, I was at a work event with a customer who was also a triathlete. He was much more competitive and successful than I was at competing in triathlons, and he told me I should just get up earlier and find time to train or ensure I spent time after work on training before I went home to ensure I was meeting my goals.

    That sounded fine. Want to be better at something, then spend time on it. Certainly, that’s what I often advocate for your career. Spend time on your career.

    However, if I get up earlier, then that means I’m more tired at the end of the day. I’ll go to sleep, or more likely fall asleep, earlier and miss time with my wife. She won’t like that. If I try to ensure we get the same amount of time, I’d likely shortcut time with my kid. There’s no magic way to find more time. If I take time to do one thing, I’m taking time away from something else.

    The same thing happens at work. Our Chief Marketing Officer noted this at our global meetup recently, saying that too many people are adding new tasks or projects and letting other work fall away. They don’t mean to let other work drop, and sometimes that’s a problem, but the reality is that we can only get a certain amount of work done as a group, and if we add new work, old work gets lost. The same thing applies to coding software. We might get more work from a developer in the short term, but that falls apart long term, and it can be bad for retention.

    Time is one of the most valuable resources you have in life. I see this more and more as I age, and you must recognize that it’s a limited resource. For a short time, you might be able to get more time by sleeping less (or working more), but those things mean you are dropping other things in your life. That often isn’t good for our health, relationships, or happiness over time.

    If you want to do something more, or new, then you should consciously decide what to drop. You have to make decisions and choose what is a priority and what is not. The things that are not a priority might get dropped (or their time reduced). That’s a big part of growing and maturing, as well as one of the worst parts. Making choices is hard.

    Decisions you make are rarely permanent. They are often choices you make for a period of time. You’ll make some great choices and those might be long-term or permanent. You might make bad choices, which hopefully are short-term, and then decide to make a new choice. Whether this is at work or in your personal life, make the choices that drive you forward, towards your goals, but with an eye on keeping a balance across all parts of your life.

    Steve Jones

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

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

  • A Checklist for Learning

    One of the challenges many people have is focusing their learning efforts along some path. The best way to move forward is with steady effort that guides you through steps to build knowledge or skill. However, with so much information out there on the Internet, how do you decide where you focus your efforts?

    Lots of people choose a random method, but the world is full of those people, many of whom never develop strong skills. That might be fine if you are an hobby guitarist or piano player, but it’s not the best way to approach your career.

    Choosing what you want to learn is hard, but if you were to try and become a better Database Administrator, what do you think of this list: the ultimate checklist for Jr DBAs. This is a long list of topics in various areas, such as basic concepts, indexing, backups, security, objects, etc.

    I think it’s not bad, but it leaves you a lot of work to do on your own. You have to find places that explain these items, which can be a chore. If you find a link, how do you know it’s good? You can’t judge because, well, you don’t know. You’re learning here.

    I wish there were more guidance in posts like this. Not necessarily more information in this post, but with links that might help someone know where to look for good information. If you know these things, then what do you think is a good source of information? Maybe on your own blog or maybe an article that taught you something. I’m sure I don’t always provide background links, but I try to ensure I include links to help someone learn more.

    Inside a company, I might include internal links to our policies or documentation. As an example, maybe we write down how often we think stats should be updated as a standard and why or what types of backup schedules are appropriate. This would be an easy way to help someone learn why we approach our jobs in certain ways, which is a very specific type of learning we need. Other more general learning is important and would drive these decisions.

    Would you make a list like this one for yourself? If you’re a junior DBA, you might find this helpful, though I’d suggest you ask others for input on where you learn about these concepts. For people looking to learn something else, such as Fabric or Snowflake, is this the type of list that would be helpful, assuming there are some links on where to learn more? Let us know today.

    Steve Jones

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

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

  • The Biggest Database Professional Challenges Today

    Today I have a question for you:

    What are the three biggest challenges you face today as a database professional?

    I was asked this recently, and I had some ideas, but I wonder if my challenges are the same ones you face. I don’t want to influence you, but I’m wondering what things cause you stress, headaches, difficulties, or somehow lower the enjoyment of your job.

    Or maybe these are the things that challenge and motivate you to do more. It’s up to you to decide what is a challenge to you as a database professional.

    I think about the challenges I have faced (and would face today) as someone working with data in a few ways. First, there are the actual challenges of working in an organization and dealing with other people/groups/management. Next, I think about technology challenges as well, with how we architect systems, pick tools, and make choices. Lastly, I also think about this in terms of my career and what difficulties I face there. How do I keep my career moving forward?

    There are several ways to look at this. In a general sense with a high-level view or with specific challenges in dealing with technology/people/etc., such as HA latency. Maybe you think about long-term issues or acute firefighting that you are dealing with every week. There are many ways to view the impediments to an endless progression of smooth, quiet, easy workdays.

    Spend a few minutes thinking about what challenges you have and let us know today what those are.

    Steve Jones

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

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

  • T-SQL Tuesday #176: One piece of advice for Past Steve

    I almost missed this month, so this is also a good #SQLNewBlogger post. I thought about it for a few minutes as I ate breakfast at my desk and then knocked this out.

    This is the monthly T-SQL Tuesday blog party. I manage the site at tsqltuesday.com, trying to keep the party going. I have a lot of help from hosts each month running the topic, and I appreciate their efforts. Join in an write, and then host a month. Lots of people have done it.

    Past Advice

    I struggle with this, as I’ve had a great life. I  wouldn’t change anything, given where I am today, 33 years after my first data job. However, knowing I’m not changing my life in some time travel way, this is something I wish I’d have known about in my early 20s.

    Network and help others in the community.

    I’ve done this lightly in my first few jobs, but mostly within organizations. As I’ve grown and changed jobs, I’ve seen tremendous power in people getting together to talk, to get to know each other, to share problems and solutions, to present their knowledge and learnings with others.

    User groups were a core part of this, and out of them grew the PASS organization and Summit, the SQL Saturdays, and the amazing community we have. It’ s far different than other communities, and many of them see it as well. They wish their world was like the data platform world.

    The power of networking is amazing. The rich world that comes from community is something special.

    It’s still there today and it’s worth joining, no matter where you are in your career.