Voice of the DBA

Tag: work

  • Taking Time Off

    I’m trying to better manage my workload. When I owned this site, I struggled to find time off, and typically worked all the time, even on vacations!

    The last couple years I’ve slowly started to pull away a bit and find a better balance. Allowing some guest editors to run the site for a day, trusting others to get some work done, has helped me to keep things in a better perspective.

    So today marks the start of another short break for me. My wife and I are trying to get away alone once a year, and are heading to Vegas for a few days next week after the July 4 Holiday. It’s new for us, and with kids (9 and 11), we’ve been nervous about leaving them, but it worked out earlier this year, so we’re trying it again.

    I do try to find balance in my life, and it’s something I write about. You need to understand the job is the job, and while it can be rewarding and fulfilling, don’t live to work. Work to live.

  • ‘Tis the Season for SQL Leaving

    With the announcement of Brent Ozar (Blog | Twitter ) leaving Quest for SQL Skills, Exceptional DBA finalist Jorge Segarra (blog | twitter) taking a new job far from the Novice Chef, Kathi Kellenberger getting a new job, and more, a few people pinged me to ask if I were next.

    No.

    I have the best job in the world (I need to blog that!) and I love it. It fits my life wonderfully, I have a good balance, I get to do things I enjoy, at my pace, I get to ski during the week, what more could I want?

    Actually I’m sure there are things I’d want, and I could do better, but overall I have a great job.

    And I have a contract. With Red Gate being a UK company, people have employment contracts, and even though I’m a US guy, I have one. It’s fairly binding and I have to give months notice to leave. However it’s fair in that Red Gate has to give me equal notice, so I have good job security in the short term as well.

    Provided I don’t do anything egregiously stupid, which I try not to do every day.