Don't tell the boss

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Don't tell the boss

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Eric M Russell SSC Guru Points: 125561 More actions · Answer 1

Grant Fritchey (9/27/2016)
Rich Mechaber (9/27/2016)
But. If I worked for Grant, I'd be terrified of telling him anything in the way of bad news. Who's gonna volunteer to inform "The Scary DBA" of anything but rainbows??
Rich
Are you kidding? My favorite part of the job is emergencies.
Server is down? WHOOOP! Let's go fix it!

Yeah, and if it's on a weekend or during school break, then the kids get a chance to see where daddy works! WHOO! HOO!!! :Wow:

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

Peter Schott SSCrazy Eights Points: 9675 More actions · Answer 2

Grant Fritchey (9/27/2016)
Rich Mechaber (9/27/2016)
But. If I worked for Grant, I'd be terrified of telling him anything in the way of bad news. Who's gonna volunteer to inform "The Scary DBA" of anything but rainbows??
Rich
Are you kidding? My favorite part of the job is emergencies.
Server is down? WHOOOP! Let's go fix it!

Fixing it - that is interesting. Going to the "5 Why's" meeting after that? Not so interesting.

On-topic - my job is to tell the boss good or bad things, but I've been in environments where a certain level of ... diplomacy is required and you really do need some discretion about how much information is shared. Of course, everything should be monitored and taken care of, but knowing how much to share and when is sadly a necessary skill in some places. And if there is a recurring issue that can't be resolved, it needs to be brought to the management's attention. Even just a note along the way of "this could be a major issue, but it's being worked on" can help mitigate the potential bad news down the road.

JaybeeSQL Hall of Fame Points: 3501 More actions · Answer 3

I remember in my very first and very simplest DBA job ( a lonnnnnnng time back) I had to send out a morning email basically saying, "All backups fine, all jobs ran ok etc", over time various managers would request to be taken off the CC list and only notified if something was indeed wrong.

I agree ours is more a role of emailing management of the possibility of, and minimising the frequency/severity of future problems, rather than firefighting existing ones, and when they do arise, in case the sh1t comes back our way, politely forward a copy of the original email basically stating, "I did warn of this". This should also encompass some form of Incident Management, where non-critical breakages are logged and periodically sent to management. That way transparency and honesty are maintained, and again, Mgt cannot claim they weren't informed, ie if an external auditor pokes around to faultfind.

Inferior management might STILL view the above as a case of oily shoulders, but when all is said and done, they're being paid the big bucks to RTFE-Mail . 🙂

andrew gothard SSChampion Points: 12314 More actions · Answer 4

Grant Fritchey (9/26/2016)
Thanks everyone for the feedback. I was hoping someone would come in and argue in favor of hiding information since it sometimes seems to be considered a valid position.

Oh, I have indeed seen that. Absolutely.

Seeing and agreeing are not necessarily the same thing, mind.

Hiding detail, absolutely. A 2 minute summary: "X is hosed, because I did Y it'll take z to fix impacting on A, B and C" in headline details rather than some cluttered, tedious and distracting peroration. But not actually hiding issues/facts/problems.

I'm a DBA.
I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them.

Eric M Russell SSC Guru Points: 125561 More actions · Answer 5

Grant Fritchey (9/26/2016)
Thanks everyone for the feedback. I was hoping someone would come in and argue in favor of hiding information since it sometimes seems to be considered a valid position.

We're DBAs, so hiding, obfuscating, and denying is that we do. :satisfied:

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

ZZartin SSC-Dedicated Points: 30920 More actions · Answer 6

I remember in my very first and very simplest DBA job ( a lonnnnnnng time back) I had to send out a morning email basically saying, "All backups fine, all jobs ran ok etc", over time various managers would request to be taken off the CC list and only notified if something was indeed wrong.

Heh... I'm on a few mailing lists for stuff like that, I have a rule in outlook that sends them straight to my junk mail folder. I get real alerts for actual problems.