July 16, 2010 at 5:54 am
Not knowing everything is not scary. Boredom makes me look for new challenges. Being a DBA is awesome because there is always something new to learn or someone less experienced to help. More knowledgable people help me to understand where the bar is and drives me to continue to sharpen my skills and learn new ones.
July 16, 2010 at 6:13 am
This phenomenon of specialization has been developing for years. I manage a (very) small programming & development staff of three. We each have our areas of specialization: Report Writer/SQL Developer, Web and Application Developer, and DBA and Application Developer. There is a little cross-over between our respective skill sets, but not too much, as the systems, tools and techniques required for each of these are complex to master.
So, rather than being insecure in our jobs, I think we're all in the situation described earlier: Each of us are too valuable in our current job to have any mobility within the company. That's not necessarily bad, as long as you enjoy what you do for a living.
So long, and thanks for all the fish,
Russell Shilling, MCDBA, MCSA 2K3, MCSE 2K3
July 16, 2010 at 6:16 am
I think most people understand that one person can't know everything about a technology. But, you can feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information out there. I spend my time doing my daily tasks and get in the habit of doing the same things the same way every day. The daily job doesn't offer much opportunity to learn new things. There's something inside of me that drives me to learn as much as I can. The problem with that is that I learn bits and pieces that aren't in any kind of order. I eventually put it all together and it makes sense but it takes a lot of time.
July 16, 2010 at 6:18 am
Ben Moorhouse (7/16/2010)
I totally agree that at least a little insecurity is good.This might sound ungrateful, but my job is too secure!
I was recently blocked from taking a secondment I was offered within the company because my moving would cause too much instability for my current department.
I then instantly became disinterested in my work and it's a real effort to do any form of learning.
So, short of burning bridges, too much security can halt career progression!
slightly off-topic, but are you working to make sure that your absence will no longer create instability? Only way to make sure that you can take the *next* opportunity is to make sure you train others/document processes to solve the instability.
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
July 16, 2010 at 6:19 am
I think once people get over the hurdles of...themselves... it makes so many more things possible. Once you know you don't know everything the next step is to learn what you can and use what you can to do the best.
Confidence is a great asset when you exhaust possibilities on your own and branch out to many resource it'll give you what you need.
Confidence is :full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing
What we don't need is arrogance it's over all useless.
Arrogance is: offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.
Do your best and use your resources, don't worry about what others know add it to your libraries and press on.
July 16, 2010 at 6:27 am
doobya (7/16/2010)
The part of IT I find most challenging is not learning or understanding the technologies ...... but discovering all the really important things that *aren't* documented
those are the niggly bits (bugs, undocumented behaviours, mistakes, subtle stuff)
I call it my "gotcha-base" it is thousands of .TXT files that describe any non-obvious or unexpected behaviour
An example from the T-SQL world could be that datetime stores the number of 1/300s of a second
so that {ts'2010-01-01 23:59:59.999'} will round up to {ts'2010-01-02 00:00:00.000'}
I don't know why I'm doing this, I know it's useless, and I don't want to have a discussion about it, but BOL seems to state this pretty clearly, IMHO. See the 'Accuracy' column of the first table: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187819(v=SQL.90).aspx
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
July 16, 2010 at 6:27 am
This has always been one of my favorite quotes on knowledge sharing, and it is so, so true too. I have it hung on my refrigerator and see it every day before I go to work:
"In today's environment, hoarding knowledge ultimately erodes your power. If you know something very important, the way to get power is by actually sharing it.” Joe Badaracco
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
July 16, 2010 at 6:29 am
I often get overwhelmed with the amount of information out there. My challenge is figuring out what information is "need to know", "nice to know", and "will never use" in any situation I may be in. If I can prioritize and filter appropriately, then I will be ok but sometimes I can't easily put the issues or topics in the right category.
SQL Server, or any other topic, is like fractals... the more you look at it the more is there. The deeper you go into it you find there's more and more to learn at every level and in every direction... it is endless.
July 16, 2010 at 6:36 am
That's a good one Travis.
I will admit to feeling depressed at times about how far behind the curve I am, but I usually perk up when I realize that it just means that I know what I have to do to get there. We have so many resources in this community to grow our knowledge, that all we really need to do is figure out what we want to learn next, and then go do that.
Contrary to Grant's post (stop selling yourself short, buddy) I prefer to hang out with people who are much smarter than me, I learn a lot faster that way, even if what I'm learning is that I'm doing something incorrectly.
Someone told me once that you can either choose to be the big fish in the little pond, or the little fish in the big pond. I like being the little fish, because if you're the big fish, you don't know how to grow.
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
July 16, 2010 at 6:37 am
Depressing.
What's even worse is the realization it's *NECESSARY* to have such a large body of collected knowledge. In my humble opinion (hah!). Having to know so much means SQL Server is badly designed, a lot of the tradeoffs are not supposed to have to be made by humans--machines can do so much better.
Don't get me wrong, SQL Server is far better at this than Oracle, but there's still too much "turn this valve, pull *that* lever, nudge this and kick the governer when it sticks" to increase the speed...
The problem is, we don't know *enough*, and by we I mean the designers of SQL server. We're still in the Word Perfect for DOS days of database design. Time to move on to a Mac level ease of use paradigm.
And don't talk to me about disparate business needs and one size can't fit all, because frankly that's a cop out. This stuff is too difficult, it requires far too much exotic knowlege, and that's simply bad design--from the ground up.
Access was a good example of the (minor) problem domain being solved well (not *right*, just well), SQL Server needs that kind of simplicity. The fact it doesn't have it means the designers have not yet understood the problem.
Is it a small easy problem? Nope. But that's why we pay tens of thousands of dollars for SQL Server.
Time to get it *right*, MS!
July 16, 2010 at 6:43 am
To me, its not the least bit intimidating. In fact, its reassuring. For there to be so much collective knowledge, and for it to be so accessible and easy to find online means that I dont have to be an expert in all the minutae of every tool I work with. Good functional knowledge is still very important, but if I do get stumped I know there is an excellent chance I can find the answer in short order.
So in fact, its not really "everybody is smarter than you", its "you're as smart as everybody as long as you know how to ask the right question".
July 16, 2010 at 6:49 am
I was recently blocked from taking a secondment I was offered within the company because my moving would cause too much instability for my current department.
I then instantly became disinterested in my work and it's a real effort to do any form of learning.
I'm in a situation where I have to deal with people, clients and coworkers, that don't understand how to do their job and don't have the slightest inclination to learn anything basic about data or use of software. So I feel like the smart kid being forced to stay in the "challenged" class to keep grade average up. By the time I get home and take care of life, I don't want to hit the books or spend time in front of a computer. So when I see the job requirements of DBA positions being offered in my area, it's painful.
July 16, 2010 at 6:52 am
I always liked the idea that Microsoft deliberately keep things complicated to keep us IT folk in work
things getting more powerful, more advanced and more complex every year just works in our favour
July 16, 2010 at 6:59 am
It's nice to know things, but far more important to be able to find the information when needed. If I knew everthing about SQL I wouldn't need you guys. Fortunately I'll never know everything.
July 16, 2010 at 7:12 am
Expecting an industrial strength DBMS like SQL Server to simplify down to the level of something like a "Desktop" database like MS-Access, that was never intended to be more than that, is like comparing apples to oranges, and honestly, a little naive. In industrial strength DBMS's like Oracle and SQL Server, expanding the functionality of the product will naturally expand the need to keep up with the knowledge needed for that expanded functionality. It would be great if these comprehensive DBMS products just had an "Easy" button installed in them that would preclude "turn this valve, pull *that* lever, nudge this and kick the governer when it sticks" to increase the speed...," but they don't as of yet and realistically, I don't see that coming anytime soon. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 55 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply