Typical DBA day...

  • Your boss shouldn't really run your schedule, but tracking down the things you spend time on and examining them later is a good way to see if you're working efficiently.

    It's a very good point but I see less practicality in it.

    Every day when I open my outlook I find few meeting invites (most of them from Management) which I can’t deny. There could be courtesy calls from other teams as well where they stuck up & calls for help.

    I am not creating schedule for myself but it’s almost given by others. (I am not including disasters / unplanned database downs here else the schedule would be worse).

    But when it comes to performance review, ONLY project tasks are countable.

  • since assignment of tasks frequently requires that "How" questions are frequently asked by the assignees.

    If you are getting too many 'How' questions, then the company needs to harden the hiring process for DBAs a bit.

    I understand there are times when we need to ask for help (team / senior / forums). But if somebody ask me to spoon-feeding him, my answer would be NO.

  • Dev @ +91 973 913 6683 (10/17/2011)


    since assignment of tasks frequently requires that "How" questions are frequently asked by the assignees.

    If you are getting too many 'How' questions, then the company needs to harden the hiring process for DBAs a bit.

    I understand there are times when we need to ask for help (team / senior / forums). But if somebody ask me to spoon-feeding him, my answer would be NO.

    I should clarify what I meant by "How"... I don't mean how to code... I mean "How to understand what the requirements are". Frequently, the given requirements are crap and the lead has already gotten the clarification on such requirements. It does take some time to reexplain the corrected requirements to those actually doing the job.

    --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)

  • Dev @ +91 973 913 6683 (10/17/2011)


    Your boss shouldn't really run your schedule, but tracking down the things you spend time on and examining them later is a good way to see if you're working efficiently.

    It's a very good point but I see less practicality in it.

    Every day when I open my outlook I find few meeting invites (most of them from Management) which I can’t deny. There could be courtesy calls from other teams as well where they stuck up & calls for help.

    I am not creating schedule for myself but it’s almost given by others. (I am not including disasters / unplanned database downs here else the schedule would be worse).

    But when it comes to performance review, ONLY project tasks are countable.

    Precisely why you track the time for a week or two, and then track what effect this had (positive or negative) on your work week. Then push that back to your manager.

    Too many people are terrified of pushing back a little at their company, especially when they have good reasons. It's incredibly hard to get fired in the US, especially if you are doing your job. Might be different for you, but for most people, it's hard to get fired, and standing up for what is fair or acceptable for your job usually works out.

  • Too many people are terrified of pushing back a little at their company, especially when they have good reasons. It's incredibly hard to get fired in the US, especially if you are doing your job. Might be different for you, but for most people, it's hard to get fired, and standing up for what is fair or acceptable for your job usually works out.

    It's going in some other direction (hiring / firing). :hehe:

    I (and many more) don't hesitate to push it back but I know it’s of no use. In small organizations, where you have do almost everything it’s very difficult to find the escape route. It’s good in way I have more responsibility & management cares for it (if my managers are reading this 😉 ). The other side of the coin is I find it very difficult to delegate few of my responsibilities to someone if required (during my vacation time, don’t remember when I went last :doze:).

  • Steve Jones - SSC Editor (10/17/2011)


    Dev @ +91 973 913 6683 (10/17/2011)


    Your boss shouldn't really run your schedule, but tracking down the things you spend time on and examining them later is a good way to see if you're working efficiently.

    It's a very good point but I see less practicality in it.

    Every day when I open my outlook I find few meeting invites (most of them from Management) which I can’t deny. There could be courtesy calls from other teams as well where they stuck up & calls for help.

    I am not creating schedule for myself but it’s almost given by others. (I am not including disasters / unplanned database downs here else the schedule would be worse).

    But when it comes to performance review, ONLY project tasks are countable.

    Precisely why you track the time for a week or two, and then track what effect this had (positive or negative) on your work week. Then push that back to your manager.

    Too many people are terrified of pushing back a little at their company, especially when they have good reasons. It's incredibly hard to get fired in the US, especially if you are doing your job. Might be different for you, but for most people, it's hard to get fired, and standing up for what is fair or acceptable for your job usually works out.

    I track my entire working day in a database. Yes, it means I spend an extra hour or so after work updating it and making sure it's all correct, but it helps when you come to performance review to be able to produce a report of everything you've done since the last review 🙂


    Forever trying to learn
    My blog - http://www.cadavre.co.uk/
    For better, quicker answers on T-SQL questions, click on the following...http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/
    For better, quicker answers on SQL Server performance related questions, click on the following...http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQLServerCentral/66909/

  • I track my entire working day in a database. Yes, it means I spend an extra hour or so after work updating it and making sure it's all correct, but it helps when you come to performance review to be able to produce a report of everything you've done since the last review

    I find one catch here. I am not sure if your manager shares the same properties that my manager has but he doesn't count how many successful installations / upgrades / deployments I did in certain period. He just counts the database crashes. 😀

    I always thank him for not counting on downtime (per second) :hehe:

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