Are the posted questions getting worse?

  • Often times around here we get the "urgent" request which will be followed up with a response asking for clarity about the details of what they actually want. And so many times it will go several months before they finally get around to providing the details of what was so urgent. Other times no response ever comes. Very few things are truly urgent in the real world. They are just the current most important thing because that is what they are thinking about right now.

    _______________________________________________________________

    Need help? Help us help you.

    Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.

    Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.

    Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
    Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
    Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
    Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/

  • ARGH!

    So, I'm selling a house and I'm going to have a bloody ulcer before it's sold at this rate.

    First, weird issues with the title and a mortgage that was paid off but still listed on a lookup site.

    NOW the BUYER is having some issues and our closing has been pushed back from last week, to this week maybe by Friday, to now sometime maybe early next week...

     

    But, at least some good news for this week, we've got the systems hooked up to begin prepping for our migration to a "cloud" which is basically using backups of our data to do it (we're standing up new VMs in the cloud.)  So I now have TOTAL CONTROL (/insert maniacal cackle) of my database backups!  It also helps that the migration devices do the backups in WAY less time than the backup system our NEC uses (looks like it does a "snapshot" then backs up the snapshots, as well as the transaction log backups)

    If anyone has heard of "Rubrik" backup systems, that's what we're using.  The truth of how good it is will be when I do a local test restore, of course.

  • Is anyone one else still getting directed to the wrong page of responses?  I was on the 'Active Threads' view and clicked on the link for Josana.work response on this thread and it took me to the prior page(4,279).  This is very annoying, thought it would've been fixed by now.

    Even posting this response takes me back to the prior page.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by  below86.

    -------------------------------------------------------------
    we travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us
    Don't fear failure, fear regret.

  • below86 wrote:

    Is anyone one else still getting directed to the wrong page of responses?  I was on the 'Active Threads' view and clicked on the link for Josana.work response on this thread and it took me to the prior page(4,279).  This is very annoying, thought it would've been fixed by now.

    Even posting this response takes me back to the prior page.

     

    Yes, I landed on the earlier page when responding to your post, slightly odd to say the least.

    😎

    BTW: do you have any insight information on Jason, has he gone a 180 circle or was Jasona just a misspelling?

  • Eirikur Eiriksson wrote:

    BTW: do you have any insight information on Jason, has he gone a 180 circle or was Jasona just a misspelling?

    Heh.  First name, last initial run together.

     

    Edited to add: Also, I get the preceding page as well, both when hitting the link from the forum to go to the last post, and when I submitted this post

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 11 months ago by  jasona.work.
  • Jeff Moden wrote:

    It pisses me off, as well.  It does help my scheduling of "urgencies" though. 😀  I keep solid records of such abuses of the word "Urgent".  I'm also not afraid of confronting the manager of such individuals and educating them on why such "Cry Wolf" urgencies can actually hurt the business.  Such things don't actually happen to me often anymore because they know that if it turns out to be another abuse of the word "Urgent", I'll cut off their head, crap in their neck, and use their head for an ashtray. 😀

    Ditto for me, though not the head cutting part. I document, and let them know I'm not jumping for anything again if they abuse the urgent word. I'll happily defend my slower pace to management.

  • below86 wrote:

    Is anyone one else still getting directed to the wrong page of responses?  I was on the 'Active Threads' view and clicked on the link for Josana.work response on this thread and it took me to the prior page(4,279).  This is very annoying, thought it would've been fixed by now.

    Even posting this response takes me back to the prior page.

    It was fixed, then regressed somewhere. It's an open bug again

  • If anyone is interested in a rather interesting problem has a look at this: https://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/topic/table-function-returns-varying-number-of-records-for-an-update-statement

    I gave up.

    "I cant stress enough the importance of switching from a sequential files mindset to set-based thinking. After you make the switch, you can spend your time tuning and optimizing your queries instead of maintaining lengthy, poor-performing code."

    -- Itzik Ben-Gan 2001

  • Jeff Moden wrote:

    p.s.  I've also adopted the policy of NVO (No Verbal Orders), especially for "urgencies".  It there's not a well documented ticket to support the urgency, it doesn't get done.  While that sounds like I'm being nothing more than an Ahole, I'm not.  It supports audits and a whole bunch of other things and I've gotten management support on that.  It's actually written into our SOPs on the company WIKI.

     

    I've kind of adopted the policy of, does it require changing production data?  that's a ticket.  Will it take me 30 minutes or less to get the data you want/help you and i like you?  no ticket.  Otherwise ticket.

  • ZZartin wrote:

    Jeff Moden wrote:

    p.s.  I've also adopted the policy of NVO (No Verbal Orders), especially for "urgencies".  It there's not a well documented ticket to support the urgency, it doesn't get done.  While that sounds like I'm being nothing more than an Ahole, I'm not.  It supports audits and a whole bunch of other things and I've gotten management support on that.  It's actually written into our SOPs on the company WIKI.

    I've kind of adopted the policy of, does it require changing production data?  that's a ticket.  Will it take me 30 minutes or less to get the data you want/help you and i like you?  no ticket.  Otherwise ticket.

    Even if I like them I request a ticket.  Too many times that less than 30 minute original request balloons to a half a day when they keep asking for multiple revisions because they didn't know what they really wanted.

    Sorry Jasona.work I misspelled your name in my last post.  Thanks Eirikur for pointing out my mistake. 🙂

    -------------------------------------------------------------
    we travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us
    Don't fear failure, fear regret.

  • below86 wrote:

    Sorry Jasona.work I misspelled your name in my last post.  Thanks Eirikur for pointing out my mistake. 🙂

    Would you believe I didn't even notice it until you mentioned what happened and I went back up and looked just now?

    No harm, no foul!

  • I wonder whether I will be cast out from The Thread as a maverick grammar nutjob for suggesting that NSO would be a better abbreviation, given that 'verbal' means pertaining to words (be they written or spoken).

    The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
    - Martin Rees
    The absence of consumable DDL, sample data and desired results is, however, evidence of the absence of my response
    - Phil Parkin

  • Phil Parkin wrote:

    I wonder whether I will be cast out from The Thread as a maverick grammar nutjob for suggesting that NSO would be a better abbreviation, given that 'verbal' means pertaining to words (be they written or spoken).

     

    Did I miss something some where?

     

  • Phil Parkin wrote:

    I wonder whether I will be cast out from The Thread as a maverick grammar nutjob for suggesting that NSO would be a better abbreviation, given that 'verbal' means pertaining to words (be they written or spoken).

    I'll see your grammatical nutjob and raise you two.  😀 According to definition "1.c" at the following link, verbal means not including any action.  So NVO still works for tickets because it requires them to take action and write the ticket.  Further, definition 3 specifically quantifies the difference as being "spoken rather than written".

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verbal

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Lynn Pettis wrote:

    Phil Parkin wrote:

    I wonder whether I will be cast out from The Thread as a maverick grammar nutjob for suggesting that NSO would be a better abbreviation, given that 'verbal' means pertaining to words (be they written or spoken).

    Did I miss something some where?

    About getting orders for urgencies. He's suggesting to use NSO (No Spoken Orders) instead of NVO (No Verbal Orders) as mentioned by Jeff.

    Luis C.
    General Disclaimer:
    Are you seriously taking the advice and code from someone from the internet without testing it? Do you at least understand it? Or can it easily kill your server?

    How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help: Option 1 / Option 2

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