Tag: career

I get asked this question regularly each year as I start coaching volleyball: “what do you do?” New parents are always interested in what the coach does outside of running their kids around a court. This year, I actually got asked this question a couple weekends ago at the final tournament by a parent that I’d talked to many times, but this was the first time we had an extended conversation. It’s always a little funny to explain what I do, since it’s a mix of quite a few jobs, most of which are somewhat out or the ordinary.

There was an interesting post from Pamela Mooney recently that reminded me that many of us perform jobs that are a little harder to describe to others. Or maybe we are a bit too literal in how we communicate and struggle to concisely express our job responsibilities. In any case, I like the analogies that Pamela makes to the medical industry where there are many specialties with vastly different skills. It’s similar for data professionals, though there are really many less potential specialties. Pamela has a general definition that covers lots of things:

DBAs are the guardians and facilitators of the company’s data.

Guardians covers most of the administrative responsibilities. Protect it with backups and security, ensure it’s still there, and more. Facilitator might be more development focused, but availability and performance would certainly fall under this description as well. The more I think about it, the more I think this is a good general description.

One that’s not likely to mean much to laymen.

I’m sure most of you have had to answer the question at some point in the past. Thinking about it now, without the pressure to respond in real time, how would you easily describe what you do? What do you say about your job? Perhaps you talk about the parts that you really like, or that things you are proud to do. Maybe you mention the things that annoy you the most.

Let us know today what you respond with, and try to do better than the generic I often give: “I’m a computer guy.”

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn

We tend to work a lot of hours as data professionals, developers, even IT management. It seems that we often are in the office at night, on weekends, and anytime there is a crisis. Even when we don’t have down systems, it seems the pressure to continue to build new features, functions, and ensure systems are operating well leads many of us to work longer hours than the expected 40 hour week. In fact, there are no shortage of companies that expect IT employees to work more than 40 hours every week.

This isn’t limited to IT. Doctors, lawyers, and plenty of other professions put in extra hours at work. Even teachers often do work at home. I’ve seen this first hand this past year with my oldest son teaching 5th grade. He spends a fair amount of time doing work at the kitchen counter, not unlike what I used to do when I worked as a DBA in a few companies.

I have an amazing job. Along with Grant, Kathi, and Kendra, we all have good positions. We work for an amazing employer, Redgate Software, and we get to travel around, speaking at various events and meeting lots of you in the SQL Server community. We also all work from home, which is becoming more common, but it still a luxury for many. In the era of double, or triple, digits of minutes to commute to an office, that’s a blessing.

Recently, I saw this note from Kendra, and I get it. I’ve been there and I have a tendency to work too much. I like my job, and I’ve enjoyed both being a DBA and Developer, as well as running SQLServerCentral. I enjoyed it so much that there were a number of years where I struggled to take much vacation, much to the dismay of my wife. Even while on vacation, I’d be checking email and the status of the site. Early on, I was afraid to take any time away from this site, scheduling time to log on, answer a few questions, write an editorial, and even edit a submission on weekends and during vacations.

I got better over time, balancing out work, though a few years ago, I was where Kendra is now. I had made too many commitments and really, too much travel.  I’ve felt what Andy described here, feeling tired and short tempered. I re-read some of my own thoughts and eventually talked with my manager. I scaled back travel, found a new hobby coaching, and I’ve felt much more balanced across the last year. Life is still chaotic, but it’s a variety of things I enjoy. Plus, I still have trouble sitting still for more than a few days.

Working hard feels good. There’s a sense of accomplishment from completing tasks and solving problems. Many of us enjoy this, but it’s easy to become unbalanced with work and life. It’s also easy to allow your boss to overwork you when we feel pressure to stay employed. Those are hard situations in which to find yourself, and I can only advise you that you can push back to find some balance. Most bosses, even bad ones, don’t want to fire people. It’s disruptive, expensive, and makes a bad situation even worse.

Remember, we work to live, not the other way around. Keep that advise close by in times of stress and learn to take time off, enjoy time with friends and families, and ensure you have something outside of work in which you can sink some passionate time.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn.

There’s a meme of sorts going around Twitter. It asks for your non-tech jobs, and I’ve seen some good ones from Grant, Kendra, Erin Stellato, and more. There are some interesting ones, and a few that I’m glad I never had to try. My list is here:

1. Ice bag packer/delivery
2. Waiter/bartender
3. Lawn service supervisor
4. Lay water/sewer pipe
5. Volleyball coach (current)

In my youth, I had a few more (newspaper delivery, painter), but I’ve had paying computer jobs since I was about 16, off and on, and I had a lot of restaurant jobs. I’ve actually been a cook, busboy, delivery person, waiter, bartender, and manager. I always enjoyed restaurant work and even had some part time jobs even as I was starting my career in tech. These days I certainly have ranch jobs, usually assigned by my wife, and I do coach competitive youth volleyball over the winter.

I know most of us have more in our lives than tech, and some of us might even have second jobs now, whether by necessity or for fun. This week I’m curious what other jobs you’ve held and which ones you enjoyed. Perhaps there were some you hated. Let us know how rounded your work history is.

As I get older, I think about other jobs. Not that I want to leave Redgate or SQLServerCentral, but I’d like to retire at some point and still have something that occupies some time. Volunteering somewhere, with a commitment as a real job, is something I hope to do at some point. Volleyball is great, but one thing I’m looking to try is holding babies at the local hospital. Many of them need companionship when they are born premature or ill and parents need a break. Seems like a good gig to me.

What interesting job would you try in retirement?

BTW, I know some of you worry about these as a security question, but I’ve never seen this listed as one of my choices. If you have, then please don’t answer.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn