Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Careful Blogging

    The Supreme Court Building – Will blogging rules get decided here?

    Today we have a reprint of an editorial from Sept 22, 2005 as Steve is on vacation.

    There are official blogs, like Jonathan Schwatz of Sun and others that are corporate preaching/marketing/promotional efforts. Not that this blog or others aren’t what the authors think, but I feel that they are probably checked and monitored by someone at the corporation to be sure that the message doesn’t bring any liability or unexpected issues out.

    Then there are unofficial blogs, like the guys at MSDN that are handled by employees, they are asked to post, but they are not really monitored. I’m sure there are guidelines and regulations, however, that have been posted, emailed, snail-mailed, etc. to everyone.

    I ran across this article on potential legal isues with blogs. It doesn’t appear the courts have been involved yet, but I’m sure it’s coming. At some point there will be someone that sues or gets sued over a posting and then we’ll really find out how “private” those blogs are.

    I made a note on the SQLServerCentral blogs page, but it’s something to think about whether you use a corporate site or your own private one. Be wary of what you post in a blog. To me the same rules that apply with you at Happy Hour apply on the blog. If you don’t want it getting back to your boss, don’t post it.

    Steve Jones

    (published at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/72348/)

  • You Should Know

    Are you building your knowledge?

    What skills don’t you get taught about being a good database developer? If you are like most people, there is a whole list of things that are good practices for writing code, but you weren’t aware of. And like most people, you might be confused about what things you ought to start learning because of the huge amount of advice from people that are sure “their” way of building software is the best way.

    I ran across a great article that tackles this subject, and talks about a few fairly critical things that many developers don’t learn. Or maybe they learn them, but don’t believe they provide benefits (like version control). It’s amazing how often I find developers, and DBAs, reinventing some process, or struggling through the same tasks over and over because they haven’t bothered to build a repeatable process.

    The best quote in the article is this one:  Setting up a staging server should be easy.  If it is not easy, you already have a problem in your infrastructure…” It’s absolutely true, and if you don’t think this is an issue for your company,  I have two words for you.

    Disaster recovery.

    A staging server is the equivalent of setting up your system again in a DR scenario. If that’s not easy, then the likelihood of you doing it in a timely, efficient, and acceptable-to-your-boss manner in an emergency is pretty low.

    Do yourself a favor at get a staging/QA/UA server set up in your environment. In today’s multi-code, hypervisor-ridden technology shop, there’s no good excuse not to.

    Steve Jones

    (published at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/72413/)

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • I lied, now what?

    Lies

    You have a job and realize that you’re in over your head. Perhaps you misled a manager that couldn’t really evaluate your technical skills, or maybe you memorized enough answers from Books Online to get through in interview. It could be that you took a test during the interview and used your cell phone to post the questions on SQLServerCentral and someone gave you the answers.

    Now you have been given a project and you don’t have the skills to complete it. You can’t ask for training or consulting help since you should know this stuff.  What do you do now? Should you continue to deceive your boss and ask for free help on the Internet? Can you muddle through it and hope that you don’t do anything that causes damage to the company?

    It’s a tough spot. I realize that you have bills, obligations, perhaps a family to take care of. Losing your job could impact other peoples’ lives. However my advice would be to be honest with your boss. Let him or her know that you need help, and move forward from this point.

    No matter what your skill level, you should be making an effort to grow your skills. You should be taking advantage of any help given to you by others to learn more.  If you are making an effort, learning to close the gap between your skills and your claims of knowledge, you should be fine. Your boss will be more understanding of you asking for help than he will be if your efforts fail and your deceit is uncovered.  Most people are willing to give others second chances, especially when they are working to make amends.

    If you’re just coasting, and happy to ask others to write your queries and not improving yourself, then good luck. At some point you will be exposed, and likely fired. And you would deserve it.

    Steve Jones

    (originally published at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/72367/)

  • I lied, now what?

    Not the best policy on the job.

    You have a job and realize that you’re in over your head. Perhaps you misled a manager that couldn’t really evaluate your technical skills, or maybe you memorized enough answers from Books Online to get through in interview. It could be that you took a test during the interview and used your cell phone to post the questions on SQLServerCentral and someone gave you the answers.

    Now you have been given a project and you don’t have the skills to complete it. You can’t ask for training or consulting help since you should know this stuff.  What do you do now? Should you continue to deceive your boss and ask for free help on the Internet? Can you muddle through it and hope that you don’t do anything that causes damage to the company?

    It’s a tough spot. I realize that you have bills, obligations, perhaps a family to take care of. Losing your job could impact other peoples’ lives. However my advice would be to be honest with your boss. Let him or her know that you need help, and move forward from this point.

    No matter what your skill level, you should be making an effort to grow your skills. You should be taking advantage of any help given to you by others to learn more.  If you are making an effort, learning to close the gap between your skills and your claims of knowledge, you should be fine. Your boss will be more understanding of you asking for help than he will be if your efforts fail and your deceit is uncovered.  Most people are willing to give others second chances, especially when they are working to make amends.

    If you’re just coasting, and happy to ask others to write your queries and not improving yourself, then good luck. At some point you will be exposed, and likely fired. And you would deserve it.

    Steve Jones

    (published at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Editorial/72367/)

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts