December 29, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building a Better Career
December 31, 2007 at 6:06 am
Just a note, your first two links in the article are dead links.
December 31, 2007 at 7:12 am
Will-
The links from the online version are working. It is just the ones in the daily e-mail that are wrong.
Scott
December 31, 2007 at 7:42 am
I will strongly agree with your last point. I've seen that over and over again, often with complaints about favouritism from those who don't focus on their careers.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
December 31, 2007 at 8:07 am
Hey, I'm planning on listing SQL Server Central frequent readership as career development. If I can hold my own with heavy hitters like you lot that has to stand for something.
ATBCharles Kincaid
December 31, 2007 at 8:39 am
Being a compulsive information gatherer/cataloger, from early on and before MP3 and P2P, I had my CD collection cataloged in Access. I had over 500 discs, and wanted to make sure that I explored a decent cross-section of my collection. I had a CD boombox at work, so I wrote a selection randomizer that would walk my list and assign a 1% chance of a disc being selected.
But I added all sorts of lovely complications. First, I had bit fields to exclude albums (I don't want Christmas music not in December). Then it would remember that an album had been selected in the last five passes and skip it. It would spit out a list of ten discs to grab (the number that fit in my CD wallet) and that would be my mix for the week. I've done other similarly pointless database projects, fun for me but nothing that I'd bother releasing to the public at large.
It was fun, and all but totally pointless. But it certainly helped in my Access programming. It's certainly not a technique that I would be likely to put into a production scenario.
Now I design card games using Access as both the data repository and the form generator for doing the printing. I just have to figure out if I'm going to attempt it on my Mac with something like File Maker, or continue running Parallels and flipping over to my XP install. My initial feelings with File Maker is that I'll be ice skating in Phoenix in August before that happens.
Last December I gave myself a musical resolution: listen to all of my music in iTunes -- alphabetically! It took 7-8 months, IIRC.
It's a good thing to twist your neurons on occasion.
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
December 31, 2007 at 10:26 am
Sorry about the links. Not sure what's wrong, but I'll see if I can track it down.
December 31, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Reading SSC every day is a good part of a professionald development plan, especially combined with a few targeted blogs.
January 2, 2008 at 6:56 am
I definitely agree with this editorial that it shouldn't solely be the employers' responsibility to provide training and help further a person's career. One thing I learned early on was to network with other people in my field - through conferences, message boards, user groups, etc. By networking, I've found other ways to further my career. Maintaining a membership in a professional group that gives its users unlimited access to books and training courses helps. Reading articles on topics I enjoy also helps - which is part of why I enjoy SSC. Databases have always appealed to me, and I like being able to learn things that I wouldn't necessarily run into on my own.
January 2, 2008 at 9:32 am
Good point Sarah. Can you imagine an employer who says not only am I going to give you a good income for your 40 per week but I'm going to spend lot's of my money to train you for your next job? The military does this.
You have to invest in yourself. If you don't why should someone else invest in you? One does this not to get bigger in themselves but to be able to render greater service. Of course the rewards get bigger but that has to follow.
ATBCharles Kincaid
January 2, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Charles Kincaid (1/2/2008)
Good point Sarah. Can you imagine an employer who says not only am I going to give you a good income for your 40 per week but I'm going to spend lot's of my money to train you for your next job? The military does this.
There's the catch - if you allow and incentivize your staff to grow (by participating in their career progression), chances are you won't be spending your money to get them their new job elsewhere - they'll stay with you instead, and grow to be more useful to YOU.
Of course the employee is ultimately responsible for their own career, but the employer is responsible for keeping all of their assets current. Even if it were just to give someone some time each week to spend some time expanding their horizon, letting people know that it's important and that you as the employer cares is critical.
Keeping your people continuously training is no different than paying for the ongoing hardware maintenance plan on a server: it seems awfully expensive day in and day out, all of the way until the server hard drive seizes up and catches on fire....
You pay for it now or you pay for it later. Good employees treated badly (or not treated particularly well) tend to leave, since they CARE. Those who don't care so much - just won't mind and will stay.
Just my observations.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
January 2, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Thanks Matt. I'm sorry, some times I say things just to be a flame magnet. Also I like to forward comments to managers that I know wherin the comments support my own position but they don't look like they came from me. 😀
ATBCharles Kincaid
January 2, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Oh I understand - I just have been battling this little point for years. It really should be a bit of a shared effort, each side for their own valid reasons. It's just hard corporately to say "it's REALLY important - I just won't give you any help or ANY resources".
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
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