Voice of the DBA

Tag: travel

  • SQL Saturday Boston 2024 Plans

    I was accepted to speak at SQL Saturday Boston 2024, which is taking place on October 5, 2024. One month away. This is a fun event that takes place in Burlington, MA, just north of Boston. I’ve been there twice now and I’m honored and excited to go back.

    There is also a pre-con. Bob Ward is teaching an all day session on Friday, October 4th that is a Cloud Workshop for the SQL Professional. Check out the description and register today.

    Definitely come on Saturday. I have a new session that I’m working on to help you balance life and career, but there will be a bunch of other great talks. Each year I go there, I find a few interesting things to see and this year is no different. Check out the schedule and I’m sure you’ll agree.

    So click on over to https://sqlsaturday.com/boston and register for this SQL Saturday and I’ll see you next month.

  • The Redgate Summit: New York

    The final 2024 Redgate Summit in the US takes place in a few weeks, on Aug 21. Redgate Summit: The Database Landscape is coming to the Microsoft Office at Times Square in New York City and I’m excited to be going.

    You can register today and join us for a full day of learning about DevOps, database development and management, and how to build better software. We have three tracks, each full of events for the day.

    • New and Future Technologies
    • Deep Dive Solutions
    • Leadership

    We have both Redgaters and industry experts on hand to deliver a wide range of sessions and panels. I’m not sure what I’m doing yet, but I’m sure I’ll be assigned a few of the TBD speaker slots.

    Hopefully you can come enjoy a fun day in Manhattan in a few weeks. Tell your boss you want to learn how to better build and manage database software and head to the City. Then register and say hi to me in a few weeks.

  • DevOps Days Minneapolis

    Once again, I’m off to a conference next week. This time it is DevOps Days Minneapolis. I haven’t been to a DevOps Days event, though I always enjoy DevOps events because the attendees and speakers are very passionate about building better software faster. Some of them have great stories and experiences (and successes), while many also struggle with the same restrictions, priorities, and lack of attention to quality that most of us do.

    In any case, this is a fairly small event, but I like Minneapolis and I’m looking forward to the trip.

    If you’re coming to the event, say hi. If you can’t, there are lots of other DevOps days events coming up.

  • A Quick Turnaround

    I visited a customer last week and attended SQL Saturday Baton Rouge 2024. Both were fun events, and an enjoyable week, though I was away from my wife for 4.5 days, which she didn’t love. Today, I had a quick turnaround, heading to Wisconsin Dells for THAT! Conference, which I attended last year and enjoyed. I didn’t submit this to the event, but got asked to go as part of my job. I accepted, and I’m gone from home for a week between these two trips.

    I do travel a lot, but these trips got me thinking about how many of us might handle the unexpected demands from our companies. In this case, I had planned on SQL Saturday Baton Rouge, but not a customer visit. I got asked a month ago to add this in, which was fine, but two weeks ago the trip got extended by another day. Just before I got the update from that call, I agreed to go to THAT! for a quick presentation.

    As a developer, I’ve been given last-minute work. It might have been a bug that was discovered or a new request that was high priority. In those cases, I’ve often had to work more hours for a short period, usually long days or even weekends. I’ve lost personal time because of the hours, but also the stress, as my mind is elsewhere. As an Operations person, I sometimes get stuck at work overnight or for long parts of many days.

    In most of my jobs, I’ve been a strong performer and had a good relationship with management. I’ve almost always been able to negotiate comp time for the extra hours spent. In some cases, I’ve been paid for them, but usually, there is the equivalent of shorter days for a period or even missing some days of work. Often this is off-the-books as most HR systems don’t cope well with this.

    For those of you who get unexpected demands, how do you handle things? Do you get something back from the company? Time, days, compensation, maybe even a thank you and a gift? It’s not something that I think is universal, but I’d like to think it’s common.

    And if you’re at THAT, say hello to me this week. I don’t know when I’ll get some shorter days, but likely they’ll come in the next month as I try to catch up on ranch work.

    Steve Jones

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