I recently wrote an editorial on preparing for vacation, and there was a great comment in the discussion afterwards. The editorial was asking if you should do extra work, and if people should be doing your job while you're out. It's a very interesting discussion and I'd recommend you read it.
One person mentioned that you should definitely have someone else do your job. In this way you not only have a backup, but a built-in auditor. If someone does your job well, then they can see if you've been skirting rules or even flat out breaking the law doing something like embezzlement.
That was a interesting point and something I hadn't thought of. If you constantly avoid a rule required by SOX, HIPAA, or some other type of regulation, it's entirely possible that someone doing your job for a week or two might find this out.
There are any number of clichés, like "rules are made to be broken", "there are exceptions to every rule", and more, but one that I think many managers follow is "trust, but verify".
A DBA needs to be trusted, especially in SQL Server where they have access to all the data in their systems. Often this is sensitive or important data and shouldn't necessarily be accessed. SQL Server is a system upon itself, with its own logs and monitoring systems, and many times Windows administrators don't even know how to track what actions have been performed on the server.
I've always felt that a really valuable employee is transparent. We don't hoard or hide information. We document things and train people to be able to fill in for us if we are not there. That doesn't make us redundant or unnecessary, it shows that we are considering the company's needs and that we are working hard to meet them. If a manager does not see the value in that, they probably don't have many valuable employees.
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
The podcast feeds are now available at sqlservercentral.podshow.com to get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.
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Today's podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.
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