Hi Folks,

I’m the new guy that my two colleagues are still trying to convince to write my first blog post and as they like to put it I’m still scared or have stage fright. My name’s Chris and I’m the latest DBA to go undercover and investigate all things SQL.

I figured T-SQL Tuesday was a pretty good place to start, especially as this time around it’s all about how you’ve found yourself in such an intricate line of work and the people that have helped you get there. I’d imagine a lot of people will start at the beginning but I want to be a bit different and start where I am now and talk a little about the guys I work with as they’re a massive help to me every day.

Thanks T-SQL Tuesday for my start in the blogging community.

Today

I’m very lucky with the position I’m in I work with two DBAs who are rather experienced in their field, fortunately they’re the two other Undercover DBAs so you might’ve heard of them. @dbadavidfowler (David Fowler) and @adedba (Adrian Buckman), two people who saw something in me 6 months ago that maybe I didn’t see myself as they offered me my first job as a Junior DBA.

When you’re in an office and you’re just a technician dealing with customers problems you don’t realise what the other people in the office do, you just think they’re getting on quietly with their work. Little did I know that when I came over here I was about to work with two of the most ambitious and exciting people in my career to date. Being a DBA wasn’t just a job, it was a passion, learning anything new was exciting and with a bit of luck I think they’ve imparted that onto me as well.

Now I’d like to tell you what got my love for technology started …

A long long time ago…

Many, many moons ago there was a 4 year old little boy who was having a computer put up into his bedroom by his dad. Little did this little boy know that from here on out this is what he would obsess over, for those of you that haven’t guessed that little boy is me!

I started out with all of the cheesy sort of games that you might’ve played like Doom and Quake. From there my love for my computer grew and grew and in turn I got quite good on it, sadly I thought I was a little too good at one point and ended up getting a virus on my computer that meant I needed to have it rebuilt.

Queue my first Windows installation!

This involved sitting there with floppy disks installing good old Windows 95! Even though I was disappointed I was left without a computer for a fair few days it helped my dad teach me a valuable lesson of don’t ever think you’re the best at what you do as something will always come and bite you in the rear or somebody out there will seriously show you up. This was the best lesson he ever gave me as it’s something I still hold as vital in an IT career.

I know I’ve only spoken about 3 people really that have influenced me, there are so many more but I wouldn’t want to put you all through a very long book.

A few honourable mentions my previous manager Ralph Steele for continuously pushing me to better myself and two widely known SQL experts Kendra Little and Brent Ozar who have such passion in what they do it fuels me to learn even more.

Thanks for reading