Am I the only DBA
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dma (9/11/2009)
If you dont read SQL books or attend worthwhile courses how on earth do you keep up?
And the stories on employer thinks you are attractive to recruiters because you attend courses...wow..really I would not work for anyone like that, and am genuinely sorry that some folks have to.
How do I keep up, LOL, good question. As best as I can. Courses cost money which I would have to pay for, and being self employed I would lose the days money.
What good are books when I dont have a computer. My experience and knowledge keep me working, and my ability to hit the ground running and adapt to any clients requirements, pays the bills.
Books and a computer would be nice, but they are a luxury not an essential. courses and certification add to your CV. they dont get you work.
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There is a ton of free training available nowadays - PASS recently ran 24 hours of PASS which was 100% free training from top notch SQL celebrities. If you check with local user groups they should have talks and trainings going on too. I agree not everyone gets to go for training but I believe learning pro actively is a huge part of being a successful IT professional. My first PASS conference 7 years ago - I took a bank loan to pay for it and went for it myself, I was not unemployed but on the verge of it and decided if I wanted a better job i had to take the steps to acquire the knowledge and know other people who think similar at the very least. It was a brave move but paid off - what i learnt there landed me a job as trainee DBA, and also got resouces to start a local user group for SQL Server. I am senior DBA now and the chapter has over 200 members going strong. Not only did I help myself but lots of other people who attend user group trainings now and network to find other jobs within the group.
IT is not like other fields where you get jobs based purely on experience, you do have to rely on learnt information many times and yes on certification too. Nothing ventured nothing won that is all.
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Just for the record then:
Laptop - yes, to a first approximation
Desktop - nope
SQL Books - 5
Driver's Licence - 2
Proof of SQL ability - none whatsoever
Paul
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Silverfox (9/14/2009)
Books and a computer would be nice, but they are a luxury not an essential. courses and certification add to your CV. they dont get you work.
what???
Books and Computers are the essentials not luxury, for God sake I have 3 computers just in my bedroom
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"It takes 15 minutes to learn the game and a lifetime to master"
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -
One of the questions we have in interviews where I work is how do you keep up with technology outside of work. The answers can be as simple as reading SSC newsletter to attending user group meetings, watching virtual conferences and so on. Normally they dont' look for answers that cost a lot of money like going to conferences and so on but they do expect an answer that shows you are interested in self learning and keeping up with the rest of the world - not just landing the job.
If you give a cut and dry answer that even owning a pc is a luxury - you perhaps will not land the job, it is not necessarily the other way around!!
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D.Oc (9/14/2009)
Silverfox (9/14/2009)
Books and a computer would be nice, but they are a luxury not an essential. courses and certification add to your CV. they dont get you work.
what???
Books and Computers are the essentials not luxury, for God sake I have 3 computers just in my bedroom
Not going to say a thing about what you do in your bedroom :-P, although the ability to multitask comes in handy 😉
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Thinking about this some more, I have a question back to you SilverFox.
Are you simply trying to know just enough to maintain your current position or get hired at the next position, or are you trying to be the best you can be at whatever your job is?
I work with a bunch of people who don't read books at home, don't go to user's groups, don't spend all kinds of extra time trying to get better at their jobs in general. But, they're good, competent people. They don't carve new trails through solutions. They just do their job and leave. If new things are introduced, they learn on them on company time only and eventually they get competent with the new material. But, they're not leaders within our team or active project consultants within the company and they don't take part out in the community, speaking at users groups, writing books or articles, or even answering lots of questions on forums like this. There's nothing wrong with this, but it is only adequate.
If that's your goal, great. Job done, go home. But if you want to excel and lead, I've never seen a substitute for hard work and extra effort, above and beyond the 8 hour day. That means, having the computer at home, with a stack of books, knowing where the local users groups hold their meetings and attending, haunting the MSDN forums, or here at SSC, write the occasional article/book/blog post that requires you to stretch your knowledge and ability past what's on the agenda at work for the next 5 days. I think that's the difference, at least for me.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore RooseveltAuthor of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning -
dma (9/14/2009)
There is a ton of free training available nowadays - PASS recently ran 24 hours of PASS which was 100% free training from top notch SQL celebrities. If you check with local user groups they should have talks and trainings going on too. I agree not everyone gets to go for training but I believe learning pro actively is a huge part of being a successful IT professional. My first PASS conference 7 years ago - I took a bank loan to pay for it and went for it myself, I was not unemployed but on the verge of it and decided if I wanted a better job i had to take the steps to acquire the knowledge and know other people who think similar at the very least. It was a brave move but paid off - what i learnt there landed me a job as trainee DBA, and also got resouces to start a local user group for SQL Server. I am senior DBA now and the chapter has over 200 members going strong. Not only did I help myself but lots of other people who attend user group trainings now and network to find other jobs within the group.IT is not like other fields where you get jobs based purely on experience, you do have to rely on learnt information many times and yes on certification too. Nothing ventured nothing won that is all.
If you consider yourself a senior dba, then your reply to this topic
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic776480-334-1.aspx
would be interesting.
I live in the uk, PASS is mostly america, definitionally not UK. I dont drive, my weekends are spent with family. and i work away from home, in b&b's, hotels and shared rooms in houses and have done so for over 15 years.
And in my opinion, you are totally wrong, IT is one of the industry's that is very heavy biased on experience. It is nice to hear that made a commitment and it worked out well for you. but very few people that i have worked with in my career have the luxury of paying out for courses or spending their time in conferences, even local user groups. the only concession I have, is that I answer questions in these forums, based on my experience and I read articles that interest me during the day when i am at work, but that is the limit of my learning. having a computer of my own would be nice and at some point I will get one, but is it needed to do my job atm, no.
And to follow on from your other post, that could be termed as insulting lol. I have been interested in databases all my life and started coding at 11 years old. to imply that you need to show that you actively pursue knowledge outside of the working environment, to help you career wise, is misleading and in my opinion wrong.
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Grant, you missed a third category...the cynic..the guy who will just do the bare minimal to keep his job and keep envying others who do more, learn more and have a passion for what they do. I learnt about this category of people the hard way myself...from the comments i get at work and sometimes even from UG attendees..last week we had a top notch SQL guru speaking to us and he mentioned how much he makes per hour. I know this person's history and how hard he worked to get where he was and i was not surprised in fact respected him for sharing that info. But he got some comments..'one lucky dude'..'yawn, pay me that much i'll do the extra work'..and so on.I also get a few myself now and then..the cynic is the person who has answers to everything but knows solutions to nothing. I try to avoid such people.
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I Know I can always reply on you Grant to give me something to talk about lol. let me have a think and i will edit this post. I am not a cynic ,DMA, just saw your post btw.
Are you simply trying to know just enough to maintain your current position or get hired at the next position, or are you trying to be the best you can be at whatever your job is?
I am freelance, if i cannot do the job, i cannot pay bills, my family suffers. Does that mean that my knowledge is static, certainity not, how can it be. Every job is different, every client is different. If i tried to be the best at everything, i would fail. I do everything database related, from production support, to BI, as well as development roles. you should know that you cannot be the best in everything.
I work with a bunch of people who don't read books at home, don't go to user's groups, don't spend all kinds of extra time trying to get better at their jobs in general. But, they're good, competent people. They don't carve new trails through solutions. They just do their job and leave. If new things are introduced, they learn on them on company time only and eventually they get competent with the new material. But, they're not leaders within our team or active project consultants within the company and they don't take part out in the community, speaking at users groups, writing books or articles, or even answering lots of questions on forums like this. There's nothing wrong with this, but it is only adequate.
Why do I feel you are using a yardstick to measure me... There are people who are content with their role in life and put family and life choices, before the major commitment needed to excel in work activities.
define adequate, compared to you perhaps. what is your yardstick Grant. I could double or triple the number of posts in these forums, If i had a computer outside of work. Does that make me only adequate because I choose to limit what I do.
If that's your goal, great. Job done, go home. But if you want to excel and lead, I've never seen a substitute for hard work and extra effort, above and beyond the 8 hour day. That means, having the computer at home, with a stack of books, knowing where the local users groups hold their meetings and attending, haunting the MSDN forums, or here at SSC, write the occasional article/book/blog post that requires you to stretch your knowledge and ability past what's on the agenda at work for the next 5 days. I think that's the difference, at least for me.
If you want me to really be honest. I think you need a reality check. my average working day is about 12 hours, I get paid for 8 hours a day. i am up and in work about 7 in the morning, dont start until 9. No particular reason just get bored when I wake up. I dont know if you work fulltime or consult. but i dont know anyone who has the time to do what you have suggested. and i stretch my knowledge constantly by what i read on this site as well as others 😛
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dma (9/14/2009)
Grant, you missed a third category...the cynic..the guy who will just do the bare minimal to keep his job and keep envying others who do more, learn more and have a passion for what they do. I learnt about this category of people the hard way myself...from the comments i get at work and sometimes even from UG attendees..last week we had a top notch SQL guru speaking to us and he mentioned how much he makes per hour. I know this person's history and how hard he worked to get where he was and i was not surprised in fact respected him for sharing that info. But he got some comments..'one lucky dude'..'yawn, pay me that much i'll do the extra work'..and so on.I also get a few myself now and then..the cynic is the person who has answers to everything but knows solutions to nothing. I try to avoid such people.Yeah, I have people like this around too. I don't think they count that much, so I try, hard, to ignore them. Plus, I'm pretty sure that SilverFox absolutely doesn't fall into this category. If anything he seems to fall in between the original two.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore RooseveltAuthor of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning -
Yeah, I have people like this around too. I don't think they count that much, so I try, hard, to ignore them. Plus, I'm pretty sure that SilverFox absolutely doesn't fall into this category. If anything he seems to fall in between the original two.
Thanks for that Grant, I think...:-P, please read my previous post that I edited.
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Silverfox (9/14/2009)
I Know I can always reply on you Grant to give me something to talk about lol. let me have a think and i will edit this post. I am not a cynic ,DMA, just saw your post btw.You're welcome! 😛
Are you simply trying to know just enough to maintain your current position or get hired at the next position, or are you trying to be the best you can be at whatever your job is?
I am freelance, if i cannot do the job, i cannot pay bills, my family suffers. Does that mean that my knowledge is static, certainity not, how can it be. Every job is different, every client is different. If i tried to be the best at everything, i would fail. I do everything database related, from production support, to BI, as well as development roles. you should know that you cannot be the best in everything.
Tell me about it. I don't do BI, of any sort except a smattering of SSRS. I work with SSIS in a very cursory way (and no, I don't mean cursor-y) but luckily we have a real go-getter in-house that handles a lot of that.
I work with a bunch of people who don't read books at home, don't go to user's groups, don't spend all kinds of extra time trying to get better at their jobs in general. But, they're good, competent people. They don't carve new trails through solutions. They just do their job and leave. If new things are introduced, they learn on them on company time only and eventually they get competent with the new material. But, they're not leaders within our team or active project consultants within the company and they don't take part out in the community, speaking at users groups, writing books or articles, or even answering lots of questions on forums like this. There's nothing wrong with this, but it is only adequate.
Why do I feel you are using a yardstick to measure me... There are people who are content with their role in life and put family and life choices, before the major commitment needed to excel in work activities.
define adequate, compared to you perhaps. what is your yardstick Grant. I could double or triple the number of posts in these forums, If i had a computer outside of work. Does that make me only adequate because I choose to limit what I do.
Not at all, and certainly not on number of posts. The only reason my count is high is because I've been doing it for years & years now. No, I'm just trying to understand your drive based on the question. I recently turned down a job offer because I thought it would take away from my family time. I value it and respect those who do as well.
If that's your goal, great. Job done, go home. But if you want to excel and lead, I've never seen a substitute for hard work and extra effort, above and beyond the 8 hour day. That means, having the computer at home, with a stack of books, knowing where the local users groups hold their meetings and attending, haunting the MSDN forums, or here at SSC, write the occasional article/book/blog post that requires you to stretch your knowledge and ability past what's on the agenda at work for the next 5 days. I think that's the difference, at least for me.
If you want me to really be honest. I think you need a reality check. my average working day is about 12 hours, I get paid for 8 hours a day. i am up and in work about 7 in the morning, dont start until 9. No particular reason just get bored when I wake up. I dont know if you work fulltime or consult. but i dont know anyone who has the time to do what you have suggested. and i stretch my knowledge constantly by what i read on this site as well as others 😛
I guess the post came off as far to personal and that wasn't it's intent. Apologies for my poor communication. I wasn't questioning your work ethic. Again, the guys I work with put in an absolutely full day... and then they stop. I put in that same day and then try to do more, when & where I can, not because I'm better, but because I have to in order to try to be a leader, in & out of work. That's all. Hell, I wish I was better, then I wouldn't have to work so damned hard and still get so much wrong on a regular basis.
Again, apologies if it came off personally. I just wanted to explore the idea a bit, not question you or your abilities. I am sorry for any ill-will.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore RooseveltAuthor of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning -
Hi Silverfox, PASS 24 hours was not American, it was a virtual conference targeted all over the world. In fact majority attendees were from other parts of the world. I do understand the limitations of UGs not in America but lot of work is being done to improve that.
I will read and respond to the other post and blog you said and am sorry if whatever I said insulted you. I counsel lot of people in my UG - the way this works for most people is like this - if you are putting in too many hours that take away the time you need to learn then it is like driving without having time for gas. You have to set aside some time for learning, how you do it is your choice, a few hours a day, or once a year or whatever. But one does not survive the industry without that .You are makign jokes on people who have pcs at home or think that attending conferences is always paid for by employer. Neither of those things are true. People who have pcs at home have healthy active families and they treat it as career necessity, not luxury. I attended my first conference on my own, even now at every interview i go i say i will go on my own if they dont send me since the payoffs are huge compared to what I invest. I am not saying you or others to do it just that it is always paid for employers is totally wrong.
Vendors like Red Gate and Quest have free virtual seminars too, there is no shortage of them nowadays. Bottom line where there is a will there is a way. It is not the same for all of us but this industry has no shortage of options for those who are open to them and willing to try.
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Again, apologies if it came off personally. I just wanted to explore the idea a bit, not question you or your abilities. I am sorry for any ill-will.
I like you Grant, dont take that the wrong way lol.
I appreciate the effort you made in answering my response, it is a good idea to explore, as for questioning my abilities, like anyone elses, noone can do that but yourself.
The dedication that you talk about, I used to have. I remember working with junior members of the team i was in, who went on to be MVP's. I have worked with some very well known people in the database arena, Not sql server but other databases. So i understand totally what you are talking about. however sql server is too big a subject to be good at everything and even to concentrate on one aspect takes commitment.
Sometimes I think I should do more. However that would mean neglecting family who I only see at weekends and that is too much commitment for me to take on. and would probably result in me being single again 😛
And dont worry I havent taken offence, you offered valid points and I can understand, just be aware that, everyones circumstances are different and you dont know what their life is like.
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