July 16, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Pulling Together
July 16, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Great editorial Steve, and while I am a first time poster / long time listener, I have silently agreed with most of your previous editorials - but I guess that raises another important aspect of team work:
Don't be silent.
If you do not communicate how you feel - then how would your team mates know?
So I guess this editorial in particular encourages me at least to dive into this world of public comment...
--Chris Hamam
Life's a beach, then you DIE (Do It Eternally)
July 17, 2008 at 1:29 am
And it's not a pipe dream either. My team/management/department/company all provide precisely that support, and it has certainly been put to the test plenty of times, so demonstrating the "walk" living up to the "talk that's being talked".
However, companies can often, with a bit of lateral thought, provide that support in innovative ways. For instance, if you have a remote access infrastructure, someone office based whose child catches chickenpox might easily become a temporary home worker; it's just a matter of making sure everyone's equipped appropriately beforehand. The goodwill gained by the employee knowing they're not being put under pressure to get back to the office as quickly as possible is immense.
Perhaps that's why company's IT department contains about 50% long termers (people who've been with the company 5 years or more). Personally, I've just passed my 10 year mark. Look after people and they'll stick around.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
July 17, 2008 at 4:03 am
More often it's not medium/long term illness but people leaving and not being replaced. I have just had 30% of someone else's job added to my current workload. It means a rearrangement of priorities and some (internal) customers' work delayed in favour of other work, also internal but higher profile.
I've worked 15 hours extra in the last two weeks but at least with a proper flexitime system I'll get that back as time off - when the SSIS jobs are set up and running automatically!
July 17, 2008 at 5:42 am
majorbloodnock (7/17/2008)
.... Look after people and they'll stick around.
Wow, what a concept! I'm not making fun of you, Major, I totally agree! Unfortunately there are so many employers out there that have the attitude "just be glad you have a job"...they aren't concerned with looking after anyone, which is such a short-sighted philosophy. It goes along with how they view their employees...an asset or a liability. I look at it this way...how much of this work would get done and how many customers would I have without my employees? They aren't the whole of the equation...you have to have all the other pieces as well (good products, marketing, management, etc.), but they are a key part of a successful business.
I agree with Major...take care of your people, and they will take care of you!
If it was easy, everybody would be doing it!;)
July 17, 2008 at 5:45 am
Covering other responsibilities: What is a "normal" work week in IT? My company states that our official work day is 7.5 hours. I average 9 hours a day. Plus I have 24x7 responsibility via a pager and VPN. So where do I shoehorn in another's workload? Am I supposed to cover 18 hours a day? Does both workloads get reduced so they can coexist? Or do we investigate cloning?
Vacation: We have a new policy that came down in the wake of the scandal over at X(cant remember the name of the French investment bank). We are now required to take a minimum of 5 consecutive work days off every calendar year. No remote access allowed.
All that said, I do have to compliment the company; a coworker went on an extended vacation heading West... To San Francisco, Hawaii, Fiji and ending up in Syndey. Took the month of December off. Great for him, kudos to the company for supporting him.
Back in 2004 I took the last three weeks of August off, no problem there either.
All in all, I don't have much to gripe about when it comes to vacations.
Honor Super Omnia-
Jason Miller
July 17, 2008 at 5:50 am
Maybe I'm old fashioned (or just old), but I've always felt that one of the principal duties you have is supporting those around you to the best of your ability. That means picking up slack when they're out sick. I understand if people feel resentful about it, but it really could be you that needs the help next.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
July 17, 2008 at 5:55 am
Here! Here!. I think Steve has hit the nail firmly on the head. I work in a shop where there are two people for each key position. If one of us is out, the other covers the work load, and yes, management does nto expect everything might get done while one person is out. What's more impressive, a few months ago we lost two people covering the same key position and the supervisor and his backup (a UNIX admin) jumped in and covered the work load for them. Wow! what a team concept. Others should take note, it really works well.
July 17, 2008 at 5:56 am
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Sam 🙂
To be honest, though, it's often the easiest things to do that are missed. A question to illustrate (or prove me wrong, of course); for any of you, how many major tasks - ones that have a significant business benefit - have you completed in the past 6 months? And in the same time frame, how many times have you received a "thank you" for that work? Personally, I can say it's fairly close to a 1:1 ratio, so I have confidence I'm being recognised fairly.
The silly thing is, though, that a "thank you" from a fairly senior person within the company is almost without cost, but the benefit is massive.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
July 17, 2008 at 6:02 am
Oh, and I forgot to mention.
Last time we had a full-on disaster situation (thankfully years in the past), the whole team took up their positions very quickly, as I'd expect of professionals. However, it very quickly became apparent to the Head of IS that the people with the appropriate skills were managing the situation well, and that the most effective use of her time was to get the teas in. She disappeared with the tea tray and reappeared with drinks and bacon sandwiches all round. That struck me as very good team work.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
July 17, 2008 at 6:07 am
I once heard someone ask the question: "How much time to you spend at your job vs how much time do you spend at home?" The point of the question was to make us aware that we often spend as much time with coworkers as we do with family (if not more). Having people around who are responsible people whom you like and get along with can be as important as having people around you with good technical skills. And of course, having a management team that looks on staff as more than numbers on a spreadsheet helps. I currently work in a place where we look out for each other, cover for each other, and basically like each other. I often get calls for other opportunities, but my current quality of life is pretty big factor in how I answer those calls.
___________________________________________________
“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.”
July 17, 2008 at 6:07 am
Steve
I appreciate your comments on pulling together -- very well said.
July 17, 2008 at 6:37 am
my wife became quite ill with breathing problems a few years ago, and her employer (a prestigious university) provided partially paid leave for many months till the problems were eventually controlled with medication.
It appears her boss appreciated her more after dealing with temps!
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
July 17, 2008 at 6:54 am
If you enjoy your work and believe in what you are doing and have a great team to work with, I doubt too many people would mind picking up the slack when someone is away (vacation, illness, training, etc). I know that my supervisor (CEO) doesn't mind getting his hands dirty and writing up some database scripts. Heck, he just sent me a bunch of new tables to this morning. We are a small shop (15) so it's easy to pull together, especially after beer in the staff lounge on Fridays.
I also read that if you hate your job, it's as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Who can be expected to pick up any slack when they are stressed with day to day stuff?
July 17, 2008 at 7:08 am
I wanted to make a couple of points.
I am a lazy DBA. By that I mean that I don't like doing work that the computer can do for me. Over the years I have learned to let SQL do the monitoring, corrections, reporting etc and just let me know when it was done. I use jobs, alerts, perfmon alerts and any other tool I can to monitor and correct performance and security issues. With that said, I also train my co-workers to handle minor issues that SQL isn't programmed to handle. My military background has also taught me to train my backup so someone is usually trained to take my place if I am out on a conference, training, vacation, illness etc.
I also wanted to point out that in this article, you start with a statement that you like to do everything yourself, then a few paragraphs later state that you are a firm believer in teams. These two are opposites. If it is a team and you are covering for each other, then why do you have to do all the work before or after your vacation? What happened to the team?
For may last two job interviews (for which I did get hired) I have told thoses that interviewed me, that "If you see me playing Freecell, I am doing my job" which basically means, everything is running smoothly and SQL is up, running, tuned and there are no issues. This gives me the time to look at performance, plan for the future, generate more work for my team by finding areas we can expand into as Database professional or just improve our knowledge by taking classes online, reading or experiementing with different aspects of SQL.
Just my two cents worth.
Raymond Laubert
Exceptional DBA of 2009 Finalist
MCT, MCDBA, MCITP:SQL 2005 Admin,
MCSE, OCP:10g
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