Voice of the DBA

Tag: career2

  • Working at Home Tips for Erin

    A friend of mine, Erin Stellato (blog | @erinstellato) is about to change jobs. She’ll go from working in an office to working at home, and I think it’s great. She’s a very smart young lady, and I think this is a terrific opportunity for her to work at SQLskills.

    She posted a note that she’d love to see some work at home tips from friends, and I decided to oblige. I’ve been working at home, away from an office, both for myself and for others, for nearly a decade now. My wife has worked for nearly 20 years at home, and we’ve shared an office for most of that time. When my wife started, we had 1 kid. We now have 3, and my youngest has been watching me work at home for most of her life.

    These are some random tips, based on how I work. Whether they work for you is debatable, but I think it’s worth getting a few ideas, trying them out, and incorporating them if they make your life better.

    Get a Space

    The first thing you really need is a separate office. I know many of us work on laptops, and we can work anywhere, but you need a place you can shut the door. There will be times that the kids are home, your spouse is looking for you, or the doorbell rings while you’re in the middle of a call. Have a door.

    We’ve had a few arrangements over the years. This is the current one:

    Photo Jul 16, 4 01 17 PM

    I went to a standing desk, which I love. I recommend it, and I think it’s making me healthier. M wife and I have shared the space for years, with both desks being in one room. Before I started working at home, we converted a bedroom to an office, putting two kids together in one room because we knew this was critical.

    Do yourself a favor, and get a separate space, preferably away from other distractions in the house. You can always take a laptop to the kitchen, or the living room, but have a set place for yourself.

    Kids

    Kids are the best, and worst, things in your life. They try you, push your buttons, and frustrate you in ways you could never have imagined. They also bring unbelievable joy. I love my kids, and one of the best things about working at home is that I get to see them constantly throughout the year.

    For almost the entire time I’ve been working at home, I’ve taken my kids to and from school. I’ve been here when they were sick, I’ve left early to get them to sporting events. I’ve been able to sit with them after school and help them with homework, while I had my laptop nearby to work on my own work. It’s been an amazing Mr. Mom decade for me and I have tried to make as much time as I could for my kids.

    However.

    You have to set rules. My wife was on conference calls a lot over that time and we had to make it clear to the kids that they had to be quiet if they were home. They learned early on that when we are working, we are working. If the office door is closed, that means they can’t come in. They can’t disturb us.

    We also had to teach them the difference between “want” and “need” as well as what an emergency is. If the computer freezes or the DVR won’t play, that’s not a reason to disturb my wife or me. Some rough days as the kids had a dressing down because they thought that their desire was more important than work for us.

    DR Plans

    One of the downsides of working at home is that you’re responsible for everything. You’re the IT guy, you’re in charge of facilities, maintenance, procurement, the cafeteria, and more. For the most part, that’s fine. Things work as expected, and life goes on. You work along, with the kitchen nearby and coffee handy.

    Until something goes wrong.

    I never knew how often power fluctuated at my house until I worked there. For awhile it seemed like I lost power for 5 minutes every day. Not a big deal if you come home from the office and you’re down. A bigger deal when you’re in the middle of something or have a deadline. Even worse when you have a conference call or a webinar.

    You will have issues. You’ll run out of coffee. Power will go down. A piece of equipment will die on you. It will happen when you’re not expecting it.

    Have some plans in place. For me, I know of 3 places I can go, relatively close, to work if I need to. I have UPSes on all equipment, and we have a generator. I keep extra coffee in the pantry.

    Schedule

    I’m a routine person. I like a routine, so I try to keep to a schedule. It’s not rigid, but it’s fairly regular. I get up with the kids during the school year and then go to work. I stop when they come home, get them settled, and go back to work. I used to work on Sunday mornings, drinking coffee, and moving slowly as I wrote.

    I run at lunch most days, though lunch can vary from 11:30 to 1:30. I have chores when my wife is gone, which usually come after I’ve checked and processed email and before I do something else. I do admin type work in the morning, and writing/editing in the afternoon.

    Those things work for me, and I think it’s key to get a routine. You know what work you need to do, and you have deadlines. I’ve never really had an issue finding work. I have an issue stopping, so a routine focuses me, and it helps me stop.

    My current routine also includes time to not work, which is usually weekends now. I bend the rule if I’ve had a week where I took time off, like for a school play, or to help my wife, but for the most part, I’ve learned to stop working just because I walk by the office.

    Making sure you still have time to exercise, to read, to enjoy the rest of your life. Set a routine, alter it when needed, but let it tell you that enough work is done, and go on with the rest of your life.

    Multi-Tasking

    This is one area where things work well for me. I can often get a few things done at once. For example, I can drive up to ski on a Wednesday while I’m taking my weekly conference call in the car. That’s multi-tasking.

    My job mostly involves thought, and since I can think anywhere, I’ve done things like cutting the grass, or folding laundry while I’m working through an issue. I have watched webinars or videos, or had conference calls as well while I’m cooking, or straightening up the house.

    And I don’t sweat it. Get a few things done at the same time if you can. If nothing else, it allows you to focus more on work when you need to, knowing other stuff is out of the way.

    Backups

    I shouldn’t have to tell IT people this, but you need backups. You never know when crap will die, and there is no one to call. I have a desktop and a laptop linked by both Live Mesh and DropBox. I make sure I have two copies of everything. I have a Windows Home Server as well that backs up machines and has copies of files (like presentations).

    Keep a spare machine around. Ask work for a new one, and use your old one for backups. Keep a few spare HHDs around and back up to them. Set reminders for backups or automate them.

    Hardware will die. Be prepared.

    Smile

    Life is good. I get more snowboarding done in one during the week in winter than most of my friends get in two on the weekends. I’ve been there to take my little girl to kindergarten almost every day of her year there. I’ve had lunch with my kids and been on more field trips than almost any parent in their classes. I’ve had dates with my wife during the day, and taken an extra day on vacation, knowing I can work anywhere. I worked on that extra day, but the family didn’t.

    Working at home is great. It’s a relief, and it takes you out of so many stressful situations: traffic, unfriendly co-workers, time commuting, sick kids, and more.

    Know your work, know your responsibilities, and get them done. After that, enjoy your time at home.

  • The Mentoring Experiment is taking applications

    If you would like a mentor, we’ are taking applications at The Mentoring Experiment. We ran this last year and it went well. We’ve been slow to get another round going for a variety of reasons, but we’re finally moving forward.

    If you would like someone to help mentor you in your career, apply. We have many more mentors that volunteered their time this year, and there should be a better chance of getting matched.

    NOTE: This isn’t training. A mentor isn’t there to teach you Reporting Service, or Service Broker. They are available to listen and help guide you in making decisions and choices in your career and life.

    Apply today.

  • Stack Ranking

    stack monster
    Would you want to work in a place that might rank you relatively, rather than absolutely?

    Vanity Fair ran a piece awhile back about Microsoft and their tenure under Steve Ballmer. It’s no secret that Microsoft lost some of their dominance over the last decade and their fiscal performance has been less than outstanding. While they have built some great products in that time (XBOX, SQL Server, Windows 7), they’ve faltered and stalled on others, and have made their share of mistakes. Today I think many people see Microsoft as an important part of the tech world, but not necessarily a company that dominates any part of their industry.

    One of the interesting things in the piece was a note that there is a stack ranking system of reviewing people. It’s a brutal system that pits people against each other, with the idea that there is a distribution of performance. Each group will have a high performer, and a low performer (or more than one) and a number of people in the middle. No matter what the actual circumstances, that’s how people are graded.

    When I worked at Peoplesoft as a manager, we had a similar system. We graded people from 1-5, 5 being the highest. We had to have proof someone was worth a 1 or a 5, but we also couldn’t rank everyone as a 2, 3, or 4. We had to distribute our people. After I ranked my group and turned it in, our director had a “budget” of people ranked as 4s, and we had to argue with other managers to see which of our 4s would be downgraded to a 3.

    I thought that was crazy. Some people thrive in that environment, but some don’t. Many people want to go to work and do work that would be rated a 3 or 4. Companies need those people because there’s always a percentage of work that suits people that do 4, 3, or even 2 level work. This Friday, ignoring the merits of such a system, I wanted to ask how you feel.

    Would you like to work in a company that uses a stack ranking system?

    I know I wouldn’t. I’m competitive, but that type of system just isn’t for me. I prefer to get along with and work with others, not compete with them on a daily basis.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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

  • T-SQL Tuesday #32 – A Life in the Day

    tsqltuesdayIt’s T-SQL Tuesday time again, delayed a week this month, so I had  a whole extra week to get ready. This month the party is hosted by Erin Stallato, fellow MVP, runner, and a SQL Server expert. Such an expert, she was recently hired by SQL Skills, one of the top SQL Server consulting firms in the world.

    The T-SQL Tuesday party is the brainchild of Adam Machanic and it’s been a lot of fun to participate over the last few years. If you’re like to host one, you just need a blog, and then contact Adam for a month with your topic.

    A Life in the Day

    This month’s topic is a life in the day of your job. Erin’s plan was to track your life on Wednesday, July 11 or Thursday, July 12. That won’t work for me, as you can see from my tracking on Wed and Thur.

    Wed, July 11

    Wake up, check email, kiss the wife and kids and drive to the Denver Airport. Board a flight for London.

    Thur, July 12

    Arrive in London, clear customs, get a tube to Central London. Leave my bags at the hotel, find some food, read, run in Hyde Park, nap, practice SQL in the City presentations, dinner with Red Gate people, sleep.

    Travel

    This is a travel/talk week for me, so I don’t have a lot going on those days. So for this post, I’m going to track Monday, July 9, 2012 as it’s a semi-normal day for me.

    Mon, July 9

    It’s summer, and I work at home, so that means that I can sleep in a bit. A party with friends last night, so I wasn’t up until 8:30. I usually wake up, and reach over to grab my phone. I can check email and lay there for a few minutes, slowly getting going. Today there weren’t any big items to handle. No meetings, a few updates for my SQL in the City talk, and regular mix of reported posts, new content submitted, newsletters, etc. I also usually check Twitter to see if any news is breaking in the SQL world.

    Make coffee. Usually the first thing I do, heading downstairs before I walk into the office. Then I walk up to my standing desk and log in, checking the site.

    Most mornings I have a bit of a routine. I double check email to see anything new since I’ve walked downstairs and then start to handle any of the items I read in bed. Usually that means removing SPAM posts, answering questions from Red Gate or members of the community. I get a fair number of normal business queries each day, and try to get them answered. Today I had a note about travel in London with my reservations and questions about my dinner order Thur (we are well taken care of at Red Gate). I had a few notes about my talks I responded to and a few posts to remove.

    Go get coffee.

    Next I flip through all my post notifications. I have my daily editorial thread, but I also answer or participate in about 80-100 threads a month on SQLServerCentral. I answer some as I sip coffee, usually spending 30-60 minutes on discussions.

    Moar coffee (as Jes Borland would tweet)

    I flip through a few newsletters, just to see what others are doing/writing about. I get a lot of editorial ideas from here (and Twitter, and Google, etc), so I subscribe to 20-30 different newsletters. The SQLskills and Brent Ozar, PLF newsletters come out Monday, and I usually read through them. They are always interesting to me.

    Water.

    I’m doing the Body for Life diet with my wife. We’ve done it a few times, so lots of water throughout the day. I also eat every 2-3 hours, smaller meals. These have some good matches with the standing desk. I need to regularly hit the bathroom, or break for 10-15 minutes to cook something. Those breaks are good for the standing desk. If I ever run out of water, I walk away to fill it.

    This Friday and Saturday I have to give two presentations each day for SQL in the City. I’m traveling Wed/Thur, so my first step is to get newsletter scheduled for the week. I am usually 2-3 days ahead on podcasts and 4-5 days on editorials. Last week I scheduled a few re-runs for Thur/Fri, so today I edit down a podcast for Tuesday and upload it. Wed is a guest, so I schedule out newsletters through Friday.

    Now it’s practice time. These are new presentations, so first I run through the demos I have. I want the demos working and then backed out and ready. I go through each one with a setup and a reset script for the demo. Most of these are with Red Gate tools, so they’re easy.

    Once demos are ready, I’ll go through the presentation here, incorporating the demos and checking timing. The SQL in the City events are packed and scheduled fairly tight, so I don’t want to go over my time. Today I’ll do two rehearsals of each presentation to be ready.

    Throughout the day I have Twitter up (using Twhirl). I’ll glance at the stream periodically, but I rarely scroll back or look at things. It’s a nice break, and it lets me see what’s happening in the SQL world. Between run throughs of the demos and decks, I’ll glance around.

    I keep email open, but I don’t check all that often, maybe once every couple hours. With Pandora on headphones, I can concentrate on looking over my demos and notes. Not a good day. My VMs ran slow, and I blew up each demo twice, which was slightly worrisome. However I made a few notes on how to smooth things out for the actual delivery, and I’ll go over them live, on the laptop, tomorrow. The contained databases demos were especially problematic as I found a few problems with my reset scripts. I’ll clean those tomorrow as well.

    After two runs, that’s enough. I glanced at the forums on SQLServerCentral to see if anything much had popped up, then spent an hour working on a few editorials. I polished off 2 that were mostly written. I’ll give those a review tomorrow. I started two new ones, getting about 2-3 paragraphs written. Those are mostly done, but I ran out of thoughts. I copied in 2 other links, with just draft titles. I’ll try to work on those while I’m traveling.

    6:00 and I’m calling it a day. Time to run.