Voice of the DBA

Tag: career2

  • Morale Data

    Would you use this service to make work more happy?

    Would you use this site to enter your morale at work? It’s an idea by a new company that should enable employees to enter information about how they feel at work, how their job is going, and other meta data that describes their attitude for the day. Managers get access to an aggregated look at their employees, as well as anonymous feedback about the way people feel about their jobs.

    As much as I’d like to say this is a good idea, I can see this being more of a tool for abuse than a tool for making changes. I suspect most managers would take negative feedback personally and investigate more, perhaps even asking network people to comb through logs to find out who posted comments, or perhaps even assume that a particular employee had written the commend without any evidence. We are often entirely petty in our reactions to criticisms, and I’m not sure most of the managers I have worked with would actually use this data to improve the way they perform their job.

    However this is exactly the type of data that might really help some companies improve their internal operations. If they care about their employees, and want to retain the skilled knowledge workers, this type of site could help identify groups of people that are unhappy, or even managers that need improvements in their own skills. I do like that this is a third party site, which gives me some degree of confidence that this data could remain anonymous, something I wouldn’t assume would happen if the software were hosted on a company’s own servers.

    I would like to know if any of you would use this type of tool at your job, and if you think it would help your company’s morale. In order for it to work, I think that the various manager’s bonus plan would need to be based on the results. Even if the manager’s “gamed” the system a bit to get a better score, that would result in a better work environment for most employees. One word of caution: if you do criticize managers, be careful how you do so. Some people can be identified by their word choice and writing style. Have someone review your message before you post it and let you know if the writing reads like your other communications.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • Healthy Work Habits

    The stand up desk experiment from Buck Woody

    Many of us work with computers extensively, day after day. It’s easy to fall into the habits of working in a particular way, and we’ve seen recommendations from health professionals about the dangers of our environment. I’ve written in the past about your heath being an investment you ought to make, and there are numerous places where you can learn how to better structure a healthy work environment. You might even want to try a new type of desk, asBuck Woody has done.

    However it’s not just the desk you work at that might be a problem. There’s an article that talks about the dangers of mobile devices, and the potential problems of working while on the go, in bed, etc. As we use these devices more and more, it’s possible that we are inducing other repetitive motion injuries, similar to carpal tunnel syndrome. If you are a heavy user or a tablet, smartphone, or other device away from your desk, I would recommend you read the article and think about how you use your device.

    I am fortunate in that I work at home, on my own schedule, and can adjust my work as needed to avoid injury. I don’t work on any one thing for a long time, end up taking frequent break, especially this month with a new puppy, and often move my work environment to different locations for short periods of time. You’re as likely to find me working in bed as at my desk, and I can often spend an hour at the kitchen counter or the couch as well during the day. There’s also that running thing I do every day, usually at lunch.

    Working in IT is a great job, IMHO. We have a good work situation, one that doesn’t tax us physically and one we can probably easily do until we retire. However it’s easy to be complacent, and induce our own health issues by not taking care of ourselves. Look over your environment, make changes to keep it healthy, and pay attention to the way you treat yourself. You’ll be glad you did so in a decade or two.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • No Cloud for Stack Exchange

    Stack Exchange administrators love computers

    One very large and successful site in the technology world is the Stack Exchange collection of sites. They’ve grown and scales with relatively few people, and they have chosen to host thier own systems as opposed to moving to the cloud? Why? One of the administrators talks about it in this blog post. The short answer: they love computers.

    That’s pretty cool from my perspective. They have a passion for their jobs, they like the different aspects of it, and they aren’t going to change that to save a few dollars or make their jobs easier. They don’t want to avoid responsibility for parts of their jobs, they want to embrace all of their jobs, as something they enjoy doing.

    That’s very cool, and it makes sense for a small company. However I’d hope that even at larger companies there were people that enjoyed their job. I know some DBAs love hardware, and enjoy digging into the specs and enjoying going over the configuration of every new server they procure. Me? I’d like to have three drops downs, with options for CPU, RAM, and disk, and be done with it, letting the people that do love hardware pick the actual configuration. Hopefully all of us love our jobs working with data.

    Life is short, and while there will always be things we don’t enjoy about our jobs, there should be plenty of things we do. If there aren’t, I’d hope we’d all be looking for some other job that we do enjoy.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • WWBOD

    What Would Brent Ozar Do?

    I’ve titled this for Brent Ozar (web |@brento), What Would Brent Ozar Do, since he was the one that turned me on to this post about calculating your FU money. A polite way of describing FU money would be the money that allows you to live your life on your terms, without having to work again and without having to kowtow to anyone else, including your employer.

    When I was younger, I was very money driven, looking for new jobs or ways that would allow me to earn more money. I have been in and out of consulting, always looking to move up in the world. As I grew older, had a family, and (hopefully) grew wiser, I realized that most of the time I hadn’t be happier by making more money. Finding more money became a game, but the things that really helped me enjoy life were the challenges, the people, and the experiences I had in different places. It’s not my advice, and it’s not often followed, but it’s advice I think it well worth following: do something with your life that you enjoy.

    Most of us are not likely to get FU money early in our careers, but hopefully many of us will get close enough to live life on our terms when we retire. However this Friday, let’s have fun for a minute and think about what it would mean if you had the winning lottery ticket next week and received a check equal to your FU money.

    What would you do if you had the choice?

    If you didn’t have to work at your job anymore, would you go crazy like so many athletes. Would you keep your life relatively sane and embark on some other pursuit? Maybe you’re follow your musical dreams, like Allan Hirt. Maybe you’d go back to school and study something that interests you, maybe you’d move to Hawaii and surf every day. Drop a note in the discussion that lets us know how you’d change your life.

    I had this question put to me on vacation with some friends, and the first thing that popped into my mind is that I’d go work for Habitat for Humanity. I enjoy building things, working outside, and their mission is one that speaks to me. I hope that someday I’ll retire from technology and go work with them, and I feel confident it will happen. Someday.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts