Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Share Your Mistakes

    I wrote the other day about a culture of allowing mistakes. We know mistakes are going to happen, so we ought to accept them. Even stupid ones. I make them at times, my wife does, my kid does, so I have been working to not get upset and emotional about them. Instead, hold someone accountable, let them fix things, and try to do better in the future. It’s what I’d want, and what I am trying to do with my family, friends, kids I coach, and others.

    Many of us share knowledge and information. One of the reasons I love events like SQL Saturday is that others share their knowledge. I especially appreciate is when someone shares a solution and how or why they build it. Hearing their stories, the reasons for their decisions, and what works well is great. I learn in a similar way from blogs, which is why we syndicate blogs at SQL Server Central and include them in the newsletter.

    By the way, if you have a blog and want to syndicate it (full feeds, please), contact the webmaster or submit an article.

    We want to share knowledge, but we should also remember to share mistakes. We make wrong turns, and sometimes others might not take our advice because we recommend them. Instead, they might go down the same wrong path as we did previously. They might make the same mistake we did. Sharing and showing how a decision didn’t work well can be a powerful and valuable story. We all respond well when we empathize, and most of us can empathize with a mistake.

    Almost every interview I’ve been in has asked me about a mistake, misstep, or other error that I’ve corrected or learned from. Usually, there is some variation on “tell me about a difficult situation” that you need a story about. In a technical interview, this might be based on a programming or database administration problem. In other interviews, this might require you to think about interactions with others.

    In any case, I encourage you to keep stories handy for interviews or reviews. I’d certainly also suggest that you blog about them. Writing is a valuable communication skill we all need, especially in these days of mostly remote interactions. Practice writing, get better at presenting your thoughts, and learn to share stories that will help others in their journey to be a better professional.

    Steve Jones

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

  • A Culture That Allows Mistakes

    Building a culture that promotes teamwork, efficiency, retention, and other positive attributes can be challenging. While many organizations want accountability and responsibility, it is easy for managers to tip over into a blame-and-chastise pattern. When someone makes a mistake and a deadline is missed or a client gets upset, how do you respond?

    I saw an article that gives some examples from the cybersecurity world about how to build a culture that allows mistakes and forgives them. We all make mistakes, and we should strive to correct them while working to avoid repeating the same mistake. But we will make mistakes again in the future, so how do we deal with them?

    One of the challenges with building a strong culture that is productive is with management. Far too many people react poorly when things go wrong. I find this is a similar challenge to parenting, where we often struggle to let go of control and accept that mistakes will occur. We can also worry that we will be blamed for others’ mistakes and want to push our employees or children to avoid mistakes. Often our reactions are more fear-based, for ourselves or even for others’ safety. However, we can’t completely avoid things going wrong. It’s never worked for me, either at work or at home.

    There are plenty of articles on creating blameless cultures (one, two, and searches), most of which give reasoning why this works better and hints on what you can do. For many of us, these might feel like a dream we cannot chase. With some managers, the idea of even broaching the topic might be too scary. In those situations, I might try discussing the ideas with peers and perhaps implementing ideas with them, rather than trying to convince management.

    Ultimately culture requires support from those in charge. Management has to actually believe in a culture that tolerates and accepts mistakes, while still striving to reduce their occurrence. Everyone deserves to make mistakes and recover from them. We’d like to prevent repeat mistakes, but those will happen. My goal is to work to be better over time and expect others to do the same. While I might need to move someone to a new job or even let them go, it wouldn’t be because of making a few mistakes. It would be because of constant mistakes without making an effort to change their behavior and be better.

    Steve Jones

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

  • Which Work Is Suited for In-Person?

    In this article on flexible working plans, number four makes a good point. What work is suited for live, in-person interaction? Which aspects of your job benefit from seeing others face-to-face?

    Today I’m asking data professionals to think about it. I know we can do all our jobs remotely, after all, many of us have been doing that for at least a couple of years, and some for far longer. I can’t remember the last time I actually needed to look at a physical server I wrote code for? Probably when I self-hosted SQL Server Central back in 2002-2003 and went to reboot a machine or add a disk drive. Even then, those weren’t DBA or developer jobs, but really Operations hardware tasks.

    These days many companies are trying to decide how to handle office and workers. I don’t know I’ve seen anyone come up with a good plan other than leaving everyone remote and figure out how to make things work. Every day in the office doesn’t seem great, and I’m not sure I’ve seen a good company hybrid plan. I see some groups deciding to meet once a week or once a month and that works well, but I think that’s more a reason to have some social time than it is a need for productivity.

    Not that allocating some amount of time specifically to bond socially is a bad idea. I am in favor of this. We used to do this when we were in offices every day, so why not schedule this periodically now?

    While you can do your job remotely, I wonder if there are not some aspects of development or operations that are better done in person. Or maybe, sometimes in-person. I can see brainstorming and planning as being smoother in person. Being focused and closely collaborating always feel stilted and confusing online. I prefer being in person. Perhaps pair programming or a similar arrangement is better in person at times. I know we can share a screen and code together, but doing this in the same room periodically builds a bond that I think would make remote sessions more productive.

    The only other thing that I think matters is cross-team bonding, perhaps doing some debate and discussion of how teams work together or how their work affects others is better done in person. Perhaps not every day/week/month but once a quarter or a few times a year I can see this building better relationships between people, much like in-person pair programming.

    If you have other ideas or experiences, let us know. If you think there isn’t a reason to ever go in the office, that’s something worth sharing as well.

    Steve Jones

     

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

  • Finding a New Job

    There are plenty of people changing jobs in this economy. In fact, I keep hearing that companies are struggling to find people, though many of them are holding off making offers and looking for qualified people. Unlike the early 90s when anyone with an MCSE got hired without too many questions, companies are being picky today about who they hire.

    I saw recently that Brent Ozar wrote his monthly post asking about who is hiring in the database community. There are a number of comments already with job listings, and I’m hoping there are more that appear when this publishes. If you know of a job, post a comment. The wider you spread the news, the better chance you’ll get a person that best fits the position.

    There is always opportunity in any market, but there is also competition. Everyone that I talk to who hires people has to go through a lot of resumes and CVs. They sometimes can’t find a person with enough knowledge, and sometimes they can’t find someone who fits in with their culture. Like it or not, getting along with others and fitting into a culture is important. This is still true even in the remote work-at-home structure that has grown in many companies. We still need a team of people working together.

    I am an advocate of working on your skills and improving them over time. I’m also a fan of ensuring you are showcasing your skills on your resume and on a blog. I think #SQLNewBlogger is a great way to start preparing for the next position you want, not the one you have now. I have written many posts as examples of how to explain what you’ve learned. You can start that now, rather than being in the situation of Ken, who had his job eliminated.

    Spend some time growing your career this year. Balance that with family, hobbies, faith, and friends, but don’t neglect your career. Your employer will, so it’s up to you to manage a career yourself. After all, if you need a job, do you want to get that great paying remote job or get stuck with a job offer that wants you back in an office every day?

    And when you get a new job, be ready to hit the ground running and impress your employer. Show them they made the right decision by hiring you. There have been some good posts on getting started at a job. Aaron Bertrand wrote about his first 30 days and Tracy Boggiano is doing a series. I’m really looking forward to what Tracy shares about her new gig.

    Maybe you want to write about how you’d start your job over again or maybe how you’d attack a new job if you got one. That could be the type of post that impresses someone enough to hire you.

    Steve Jones

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