I'm kind of stunned. I have asked 6 people to go to the PASS conference over the last 4 days in Denver, all local people, and they cannot get time off for the conference. And a few of these are DBAs!!
Two are in projects, granted, so time off is hard, but 2 are DBAs and their boss won't authorize time off and they're frustrated. Needless to say I'm looking to find some new jobs for people as well now.
A conference is a debatable ROI for a company, and I can understand not wanting to shell out the $2k admission, plus $1000 or so in travel/food and the time off. But for local people, all they need is time off. No food, not airfare, no admission. It's an easy way to get some training, retain an employee and maybe have them get some ideas or solve a problem. After all the SQL developers from MS are here and they're great about answering questions.
