July 17, 2008 at 7:42 am
Ray Laubert (7/17/2008)
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?
I have to say I'm just like Steve in this regard. I have many things that I keep on my plate and no one knows how to do them, on purpose. I do rely on a team but have found that by keeping some things to myself, I create a bit of job security (necessary in my previous job). I understand that this sounds like a double standard but I believe it comes more from a "pride in my work" standpoint than anything else (probably a contradiction to my previous sentence). I like to know that my boss can clearly recognize my value to the company. I'm still learning my place on my new team (just started four months ago) but I can already see a tightly knit team where everyone is capable of filling in to some capacity when one person is out.
In my previous job, the division manager always preached team work but never really helped us achieve it. The directors below him still maintained a level of pride that prevented us from working as a team between departments. My coworker ended up out for three months on maternity leave and I was basically told that I would be replaced if I was unable to take up the slack - adding four or more hours per day. Plus, if I ever needed to take a day or two, I might as well have pulled teeth out. I actually ended up with nearly 30 days of vacation they paid out when I left since it was so hard to get the time off.
Here in my new position, my wife became ill about two months ago. When she called me that morning, based on her medical history, I was reasonably sure she would be going to the hospital (she was too as she was already packed by the time I got home). When I told my boss and mentioned I didn't have any PTO (paid time off) accrued yet, she said "go home and take care of your wife and don't worry about the PTO." It is such a completely different "team" environment than what I'm used to. Maybe my perceptions will change over time and I'll keep everything well documented so someone could easily fill in when I'm gone.
July 17, 2008 at 8:00 am
Here in my new position, my wife became ill about two months ago. When she called me that morning, based on her medical history, I was reasonably sure she would be going to the hospital (she was too as she was already packed by the time I got home). When I told my boss and mentioned I didn't have any PTO (paid time off) accrued yet, she said "go home and take care of your wife and don't worry about the PTO." It is such a completely different "team" environment than what I'm used to. Maybe my perceptions will change over time and I'll keep everything well documented so someone could easily fill in when I'm gone.
Jim.Powers - I wish my boss of my old job would be so understanding. Actually I was the one who was sick with chronic pneumonia, I could not breath and had two pneumonia with 6 weeks. Finally I had to see a specialist. Even I was under doctor's care, I was 100% myself. My boss thought once I went to see the doctor, everything back to normal. Long story short, we ended our relation in a very bad way.
I took a few months off and now I am back to work. But with the new job, I am so stress out, I feel my health is going downhill again. My new boss saw me so tired all the time, I began having a feeling that he regretted that he ever hired me. This made me even more stressful, it is just a bad cycle.
In today's economy no one is allowed to get sick!!!!!
July 17, 2008 at 8:06 am
Glad to see that there are places that recognize the value of teamwork and that need for people to pull together. I'd like to think it's that way more places than not, but it is hard to tell these days.
July 17, 2008 at 8:23 am
This word, "Team"? It must be one of your strange Earth customs. :alien:
I have NEVER had a team when it came to DBA work. Well, not entirely true, when I first started working with SQL Server back in the v4 days, my boss and I were the database staff. But once he left, I've been a solo DBA everywhere I've worked, regardless of IT department staff count. I tried getting my developers to learn more about the admin side of things so that I had backup, but I failed miserably with absolutely no management support.
Teams are a great thing, especially with good management support, but I've never had them. :hehe:
-----
[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
July 17, 2008 at 8:44 am
So many businesses fail the mack truck test - they have one person controlling crucial knowledge such that if that person were hit by a mack truck, it would be a major effort to figure out how that person did their job / supported their application / what have you. Redundancy is always a good thing in the office so that people CAN cover for each other without it becoming a major nightmare that gets in the way of them getting their own normal work done.
In the hypothetical situation of one person being off on medical leave for several months, I would say that it is better to hire a contractor to fill in the gap than to add to everyone else's plate, assuming it wouldn't take months to get the contractor up to speed. In that case others will have to take over the essential stuff but it is up to management to figure out what tasks that the other team members have can be made lower priority. It is fair to ask others to cover essential tasks - but not fair to expect they suddenly be working 2-3 extra hours a day to do it for more than a very short time.
I too am in favor of automating whatever possible to make things easier to cover - of course I'm primarily a developer so it's hard to automate that!
In my not-so-humble-opinion.
--
Anye Mercy
"Service Unavailable is not an Error" -- John, ENOM support
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." -- Inigo Montoya in "Princess Bride"
"Civilization exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice." -- Will Durant
July 17, 2008 at 9:14 am
Someguy (7/17/2008)
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?" ....
Heck, I'm often still working when I'm at home. Not actively sitting down and writing code, but the problems and potential solutions are going through my head. I know I need a couple of days off when I start dreaming about the servers and procs and such, and actually come up with a solution in my sleep. (Happens a couple of times a year, at least.)
I came up with the structure of a hybrid adjacency-nested sets hierarchy query, while I was out at the movies (was a good movie, too). Had been trying to get it to work right for a few weeks, so it was good to arrive at a solution, but ... in the middle of a good movie?
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
July 17, 2008 at 9:16 am
The contractor is not a bad idea if the workload is large. And you'd want to think about this creatively. You might hire a contractor to do someone else's job and move that person to fill in for the person that's out.
I've rarely had more than one DBA, but that doesn't mean not filling in. I know I've done some development work or network stuff to help out those groups when they're shorthanded. To me "team" is the entire group you work with, not just necessarily database people. From an entire production team to an IT department, depending on the size of your company.
July 17, 2008 at 9:40 am
Last year I had major surgery and I was out for about three months. I had about half the time covered by sick leave but I faced being unpaid for part of the time. Not only did others group together to get what I do done while I was out, but the organization asked other employees if they would share leave with me so I could be paid while I recovered.
I needed over 240 hours of time, and within a day of the email going out to the employees our HR person managing the donations of leave had to start telling people the amount needed had been reached, and that there was a waiting list if more was required.
Many organizations are like this. Many are not. And over the years I have found that I truly have been blessed to work with a great team for a long time. If you happen to find one, a sweet spot, stay there as long as you can. More pay is not always worth it.
Have a great day!
Miles...
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
July 17, 2008 at 10:24 am
Steve Jones - Editor (7/17/2008)... To me "team" is the entire group you work with, not just necessarily database people. From an entire production team to an IT department, depending on the size of your company.
Agreed, but the departments that I typically work in are pretty small, and as a matter of task specialization where I'm currently at, I don't have a backup. (of my 5 co-workers, one is a mainframe-only programmer and will be retiring next year, one only does ERP security and is retiring in 2 months, one is the ERP/GIS and project manager, and the other two do ERP reporting and implementation: there is no one to help me, I'm their first and only DBA.)
I've conducted training, a SQL Server 101 sort of thing, so some of the others have a grasp of what the database does and what is involved in administration. The IT director knows SQL Server but isn't current, and the ERP manager has a little hands-on experience if there's an emergency. The backups run unattended without problems, the DBCCs have never detected a problem in a production database, so things are pretty smooth. The ERP system has good support from the vendor, so no problems there if something happens to me. Of the three "problem children" servers, all that needs to be done to make them straighten up and fly right if they have a problem is a reboot.
Fortunately we don't have any replication or mirroring, or any hideously complicated DTS. Everything we have is fairly simple, straight-forward, and stable.
So though we don't have Mack Truck insurance in the forms of someone who can step into my shoes at a moment's notice, we wouldn't be too bad off if something happened.
-----
[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]
July 17, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Miles - do you mind to share the company name?
July 17, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I had to take an extended maternity leave a couple of years back. My assistant stepped up to the plate tremendously. I was available by phone and came in to help out with a couple of things but overall he and my other co-workers took care of most everything. My bosses were great too in allowing some projects to be pushed back until I could come back so it wasn't as stressful as it could have been for everyone involved.
I wouldn't work someplace that cared so little for their employees or co-workers that they wouldn't help out when the situation called for it.
July 17, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I have been back at work for about 6 months now after having 6 months off to have my first baby and my work has been great. I wound up my projects before going on leave and when I got back everyone was great about not loading me up with work. I was allowed to ease back into it. I develop databases (mostly SQL Server) and the applications that access them. I also help out with some DBA stuff as well. I am the only one in the company that does this work so there was no one to do the work while I was away but there are people here who can troubleshoot if necessary. My company treats its staff pretty well so a lot of us have been here for a while!
Nicole Bowman
Nothing is forever.
July 18, 2008 at 4:38 am
Notice how there is no 'I' in TEAM?
Furthermore, TEAM is not a word, it is actually an acronym. Simply standing for:
Together
Everyone
Achieves
More
So for those that hold onto knowledge exclusively, ask yourself this - are you really achieving more for the team?
TEAM work is about letting go to some extent. Letting go of self. Letting go of anything that does not benefit the TEAM as a whole.
The trade-off in letting go of self is that it frees us to adopt greater identity with the TEAM.
--Chris Hamam
Life's a beach, then you DIE (Do It Eternally)
July 18, 2008 at 7:56 am
Chris Hamam (7/18/2008)
Notice how there is no 'I' in TEAM?...
Personally, I hate that particular cliche. There's also no "we" in "success". There is an "i" in "win". The spelling of the word has nothing to do with it.
Teams are nothing but individuals with a common purpose. Ever seen a team that had no people in it? (And don't mention "teams" of dogsled huskies or draft horses, because those are put together and managed by people.)
Yes, teams are stronger than individuals. But that cliche is trite and pointless.
(Sorry, I'm overreacting. I just really hate that one.)
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
July 18, 2008 at 7:59 am
When I was interviewed for this job, I was asked if I wanted to work for a perfect company than meant all the systems were well maintained, everything was documented and all I had to do was new development. I said I had yet to see such company.
From all the threads I gather in this thread, the perfect company is not the one who has the latest technology, the system runs perfect, it is the people that you work with. If you can work with a group of people that care about people, that is the perfect place to work.
Unfortunately, I was managed to find the company and work in the work with the opposite!:crying:
Maybe because I am in NY (Update NY)
Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 31 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply