Voice of the DBA

Tag: health

  • Measuring Well Being

    I need to write something more on this, but it struck me that this is something I wish previous employers had done, anonymously, and reported results back to others. I also with I had some data on how I look at things over time.

    Here is my Thymometrics dashboard.

    2020-06-15 07_39_08-Thymometrics _ Contribute

    Today I got the reminder to fill this out and decided to reset the sliders. The left is my rating of this in my job and the right is how I feel. I often glance at these and adjust them, but periodically I reset them.

    I look at this as a chance to take five minutes and take stock of where I am in my current employment.

  • The COVID-19 Impact

    I didn’t think much of the COVID-19 virus when I first heard of it. It’s another dangerous virus, but like SARS and MERS, it originated on the other side of the world from me and I didn’t expect to see a large impact. These were epidemics and my heart goes out to those affected by them. I thought the current COVID-19 impact would be similar, but that’s not correct.

    The MVP Summit was cancelled by Microsoft this week, as have quite a few large events around the world. SQL Konferez is still taking place and SQL Bits is still scheduled to go on. I travel to the UK next week, and I’m not concerned, but I will be careful. I think avoiding large scale gatherings is a good idea, and certainly, I hope anyone feeling sick will avoid going out as much as possible, especially to places with a concentration of people. Many of us have events and commitments we hate to miss (exams, weddings, etc.), but if we’re ill, this seems like the time to skip or reschedule something.

    This epidemic, or pandemic, is going to affect lots of the world. Already travel is curtailed, some countries have banned large events, others are being cancelled. Whether necessary or not, these are the realities we are dealing with. I hope most employers adapt and adjust to this, limiting the chance of infection and exposure.

    Cisco is offering Webex to customers and others to help limit contact with those that might be infected, as a way to prevent the spread. At Redgate, we are planning for disruptions and having teams practice working remotely while still getting work done. They are trying to run their stand-ups and other meetings from home. This is easier for some groups than others, but it’s a skill most teams need to develop. We already ask people to remain home when ill, but in this case, we’re just running our DR test early in the event that we need to ask most employees to work remotely.

    I’m not a doctor or scientist, and I don’t quite know what to make of all the information being spread online through social media. There are recommendations from the CDC, and most of the advice I’ve seen is similar. Wash your hands, disinfect common surfaces, and cover your mouth if you have any symptoms.

    I hope and pray no more people die, but I also know that likely isn’t reality. Take care of yourself and your family, and be smart in how to live and work in public. I hope the world gets control of this soon and we start to see a decline in cases, and I hope most of us find ways to help that come true.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Learning from Exercise

    A long time ago I decided to run every day. I did for a bit, in fact, I had a neat milestone along the way and continued on for 1564 days. That was quite a memorable period in my life, and one that I look back upon fondly. I’ve aged a bit, and while I could do it again, I also have decided there are other things that matter more to me, so I have moved on in life.  I learned a lot from that time, lessons about myself and life that continue to help me today. Some of them even apply to work and my career, little nuggets of wisdom that help me find ways to find success in my life.

    Apart from some better fitness, one of the main benefits for me was the sense of accomplishment. I had no bad days where I would think I wished I had run. None. That seems obvious, but it also provided me some comfort that I had moved things forward in my life. I took that lesson back to work, where I sometimes have bad days. I have days where nothing goes right, or I have people that take over my day and schedule.

    I know there are also a number of things that I need to do at work, which aren’t that important, or even aren’t that critical, but they provide a measure of satisfaction that I’ve moved things forward. These days that is often getting things scheduled for the newsletter. In the past it might be doing a little space extrapolation (though I’d just look at this in SQL Monitor today). Low value items, but I get some accomplishment in the midst of otherwise stressful times when I get something small done that is on my list.

    The other thing that came from the running streak was the feeling of getting away from other parts of my life. Whether with family or work, I might be overwhelmed or stressed or otherwise out of sorts in my day. Taking 20-30 minutes for myself was a way of resetting my day, and it was a welcome break. While exercise is my thing, and even today it’s a priority around work, I’ve had other crutches that help me cope. I love to read, so taking 5 minutes to escape in a book every day is something that feels similar to exercise.

    I know other friends that might play a short game, play with a pet. Having some other consistent, distracting activity is a good release when things are tough. No matter how busy we are, or what’s broken, taking 5, 10, 15 minutes away can help refresh you and get you ready to go back into the trenches and deal with others.

    I’m sure jobs exist that can’t spare the time, but I’ve never had one. I haven’t always realized it until later, but I wish someone had told me to take 10 minutes away in a crisis to reset myself and then come back. I know I’ll remember that the next time I end up being stressed during an IT problem at work.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Down for a week but keeping ahead

    I work in a publishing business at SQLServerCentral, which means that I often have things written, edited, and scheduled out ahead of time. As much as we want the site to be dynamic, fresh, and changing in content, it takes a bit of work to keep a pipeline of things ready to go.

    When I’m traveling, or the holidays are near, I try extra hard to be prepared, since I know that life will get in the way of things, I’ll be distracted, and I forget things. I often have a week to ten days worth of stuff ready and often scheduled.

    This past week I was glad I had done that.

    The weekend between Christmas and New Years I started to feel ill, which wasn’t what I wanted. Not that I ever want to be sick, but there are better and worse times. We had a trip planned to Steamboat Springs for a few days and as I packed skis, I knew it was unlikely I’d get on the slopes. I didn’t, and spent a couple days out of town, mostly in bed reading. Good for relaxing away from life, not what I wanted.

    Basically I was in bed all last week, only at my computer Wednesday briefly when I returned from the mountains to schedule a few things before back in bed. I didn’t even leave my room Thur and Fri. I felt slightly better over the weekend, but wiped out again today.

    I managed to go find a laptop and power cable, needing to schedule a few other things to get through another couple days, but this has been a rough time time on my body. Some flu bug, so I’m glad I a) work at home and b) don’t have to be working every day to survive.

    Hope everyone else is well and had a good holiday season, and hope to be back and moving well soon.