Voice of the DBA

Tag: life

  • Daily Coping–23 Mar 2020

    I’ve started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

    Today is the start of coping, and the newsletter has this in it:

    • Keep Calm
    • Stay Wise
    • Be Kind

    Interesting mantras, and they’re on the front page of the Action for Happiness site. Someone at Redgate pointed this out to me, and I needed it.

    It’s hard to keep calm. I’ve had people with direct contact to me or my family get sick. There are people my family knows firsthand that have gotten sick but can’t determine if they have COVID-19 or a bad flu. It’s a scary time, but I’m trying to remind myself that my family and I are healthy and doing well. This is a new reality to cope with and we need to support each other for now.

    I usually try to avoid news. The world has gotten very excitable, and there is a lot of sensationalism in the news. There’s a very disturbing partisanship online, and for the most part, I think people present themselves in a much poorer way than they do in person.

    However, I also think it’s important to understand what’s going on. I try hard not to get emotional, but just understand more about this pandemic and what makes sense. I try not to blindly accept things, but look for some confirmation that I am better off doing A than B. It’s hard, but I’m trying to get some limited information and make smart choices.

    I do think that this is the time to be more understanding and kind to others. That includes my family, as we’re self isolating for a few weeks. Close quarters bring conflicts, and so I am trying to remember to be kind when I can.

    I think this is especially important online, so if I’m less talkative, it might be that I need to take a few breaths and remember this.

    I’ll continue to talk about my coping mechanisms through this, and try to keep some daily things in the newsletter to think about.

  • Summer Break

    This feels like a strange day in the summer, with a holiday yesterday (Fourth of July) and the weekend starting tonight. This is similar to the Friday after the US Thanksgiving holiday, which is usually a day when very little gets accomplished in most offices. I’ll be a little more productive at home than I would be in an office, but I’ll still have a bit of a holiday lull from yesterday and a weekend coming up. Actually, maybe I’ll get plenty done since I’m sure my body is tired after working on driveway maintenance and (hopefully) rebuilding a trailer hub. (If you haven’t guessed, I’m writing this before the break)

    It’s the start of the second half of the year and a time when many people take holidays. Schools are usually on break, so families often look to travel somewhere. Some of us might take a staycation, catching up on projects at home. I know I’ll be doing that a bit this summer as a busy first half of the year has me way behind on a number of maintenance items and projects.

    We all need a break, so this week I’m asking you what things you might do this summer with friends and family that provide a welcome distraction from work. I’m assuming you’ll have some time off, even if it’s just a weekend, so share a fun event or activity you’re looking forward to enjoying.

    With my kids getting older, we rarely get together. Even on some of the smaller holidays, my son won’t come home from university. If we do get together, it’s often just a meal, though we did have a fun afternoon of bocce after my daughter’s graduation from high school. Maybe we’ll get out this weekend and do that again.

    My wife, kids, and I love music. Some of us play instruments, some of us sing, but we enjoy hearing music all the time. We also enjoy movies, and last year my family when to see Bohemian Rhapsody, which was amazing. The music is great and I recommend this entertaining and enjoyable film. We also saw Rocketman recently, a good, but sad film for me to watch. Perhaps we’ll all go see Yesterday this weekend since we enjoy the music of The Beatles. We’ve been Marvel fans, so I’m sure Spider-Man is on our agenda. This particular reboot is my favorite so far, so that’s a possibility as well. We might have a bit of a debate on which to go see or just go see both.

    I’ve gotten away from most sporting events and live concerts at event centers due to the time commitments (and cost). These days my wife and I may go see a local musician or a comedy act, but more often than not a movie (at home or out) is a way we escape from some of the pressures of life.

    Hopefully you have something you’re looking forward to, so let us know today how you’ll brighten up your summer months.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn

  • Give Hugs

    Tomorrow I fly away again. Next week is our first 2019 SQL in the City Summit and I need a couple days to adjust to the time and prep, hence the trip starting tomorrow to get to the UK by Sunday. I’ll ensure that I say good bye to my wife and kids, and give them hugs before I go. I’ve done this dozens of times, and things always work out well. I’ll be back Wednesday and more hugs will ensue.
    I don’t usually worry about travel, or really any major issues affecting my family. They do happen, and we’ve had our share of ER visits because of something, but I don’t worry about the potential issues. I do, however, appreciate every day I get with family as I have seen tragedy befall others. I have had too many friends die in their 40s to not respect the wonderful life I have.
    I was reminded of this recently as I read Jim Donahue’s post about his father. It’s a look back at a trying year in his family. I won’t repeat things here, but it’s worth a read, and maybe send him a virtual hug and support. I can sympathize with both Jim and his father about the struggles of aging. I feel it often myself, and I know that life will continue to get tougher through the years, both for me, my family, and friends.
    I strive to enjoy the small things in life. The little parts that pass me by each day and I can appreciate. The joy of our dogs, the satisfaction of a success at work, even the wonderful pictures I see friends post online. As busy as life can be, it’s important to stop and enjoy many parts of it, smile at the world when you’re happy, look forward to better times when you’re not, and make time for family and friends.
    I’ll be away this weekend, but I’ll communicate with my family, enjoy some time with friends, and hope to smile and chat with some strangers in my travels. Life is amazing, but so much more so when you make an effort to appreciate how beautiful the world can be when you stop and smell the roses.
    Steve Jones

  • Forgiveness

    We are frail, fragile creatures. I think this is one of the main reasons I push for and try to work in an agile, DevOps style of development. I know that I make mistakes, as do others. My goal is often to ensure our system, our process, our way of working can transcend those mistakes and we can still be effective. We can use automation and regular examination of what works and what doesn’t to ensure our system works well and isn’t overly dependent on one person.

    Part of dealing with mistakes and failures is learning from them. Not only do we need to learn ourselves, and avoid repeating mistakes, but we also need to learn to forgive others. I thought about this as I was reading Derik Hammer’s post on Active Forgiveness. In his post, he covers the situations where we acknowledge mistakes without a punishment. Instead, we forgive the act and go to work on finding ways to prevent the same situation from happening in the future.

    I think this is one of those concepts and practices that are very difficult for most leaders, and maybe more followers. We don’t want to excuse the behavior, and we certainly don’t want to tolerate this in the future. What we want is for this person, and others, to learn from the mistake and work to prevent it in the future. What often happens is that we blame the person, we’re glad we’re not the person, and we may not learn a lesson because we think that we wouldn’t make the same mistake.

    Throughout my career I’ve seen the same mistakes occur over and over. Sometimes the same person makes a mistake again, but often different people make the same mistake because there wasn’t a product retrospective where everyone learned for the future. Having a blameless meeting where discussions take place, mistakes aren’t minimized, and everyone learns is hard, but it is important if we are going to improve our teams performance over time.

    I’d encourage you to try to find ways to learn from failures and grow. Forgive others actively, but don’t minimize the mistake. Hopefully you can also help your management learn to do this.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 3.1MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.