May 23, 2012 at 8:28 am
Indispensable equals risk, and companies don't like that, so will attempt to reduce the risk so it's manageable. If that means reducing their capabilities in the process, well that's just an acceptable price to pay. Net result, of course, is that the "indispensable" person becomes dispensable, then gets shown the door.
Sometimes, yes. However, many times not. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
May 23, 2012 at 9:09 am
Thank you for the firsthand insight.
New to the software industry and working in marketing for a reporting software company that increases efficiencies, which really is the gist for most software isn't it, I've been cautioned about these attitudes.
This is what really sets business-to-business marketing apart from business-to-consumer marketing. Price aside, a consumer wouldn't think twice about purchasing something that helps with improving efficiency.
Love the post,
Annette with Windward
May 23, 2012 at 9:21 am
Frank Bazan (5/23/2012)
One thing that these tools will often lead to though, is a dulling of your core skills and situational awareness.
Very true. You should know how to do things, understand what the tools do, and make sure you could do without them if you needed to.
But use them when you can
In a previous life as a flying instructor, ....
Ah, is this a post from the Other Side? :w00t:
May 23, 2012 at 9:22 am
Your Name Here (5/23/2012)
Just about everything I know about PowerShell I've learned from writing scripts to automate a task.
That's a great tool, and a great feeling, I'm sure.
May 23, 2012 at 9:25 am
richj-826679 (5/23/2012)
I heart automation -- correction: GOOD automation -- because I believe it's vital for the solo DBA's sanity. I loathe the 1MB "Everything's OK!" daily emails that list every stinking file that was cleaned up. I. DON'T. CARE.
I agree. I throw this stuff in a log for things like ISO, SOX, but I only want to be notified when things don't work, or don't run. So I do need a process to make sure my automated report was run, but I don't need to know what worked.
May 23, 2012 at 10:56 am
Automation is a deal that involves lots of upfront investment for payback over time. In my experience, in many companies that does not fly - their approach is "We do not have time to do it right but we always have to fix it over and over."
If management has this approach, that seeps through the entire org and people who put in lots of hours to deal with the same problem over and over again are heroes but those who want to get it right the first time are marginalized because they "do not understand our priorities."
Edit: typo in "marginalized."
May 23, 2012 at 11:05 am
Automation of my work is why I got into IT in the first place. Never yet worked my way out of a job. Don't think it'll happen any time soon. If it does, I'll consider it work well done, and move on to something else.
I'm confident enough of my intelligence and general ability that I don't worry about not being able to find something useful, entertaining, and remunerative to work on, regardless of shifts in technology and automation.
- 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
May 23, 2012 at 8:13 pm
I so often see people working in IT fail to take advantage of all the tools we have to automate much of their jobs.
Gosh... I think the exact opposite is true in many cases and the automation of those jobs is a huge problem for the rest of us.
For example, you used to have to write "CRUD" either in the app or in the database and call it from the app. Nowadays, we have tools to automate that such as Hibernate, nHibernate, Linq, and many others. They do exactly what they were designed to do... make it easy for people to write "CRUD". The problem is that it's a double edged sword because it turns out the other kind of CRUD, as well. Because it's automated, people don't even know about the other type of CRUD and have actually lost the small skill required to even recognize it. There are even framework tools to help front-end developers create "tables" to support their front end code. They "no longer" need to even know anything about databases.
When I talk about the "other kind of CRUD", I'm actually being very kind. What I really mean is horrifically ineffective and ineffecient crap code that sucks the life out of databases, servers, and networks all over the world and fully provides for more than half the performance problems that people inappropriately blame the database, SQL Server, Microsoft, the metworks, machines, and the DBAs for. Anyone and anything but themselves and the crap tools they've been given to make the jobs easier.
I'm not a Luddite but I don't believe in giving people tools to make their jobs easier when they don't actually know what the hell their job is. 🙂 It's like giving double edged razor blades to a baby... they're going to hurt themselves and they might not feel it until it's too late.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
May 23, 2012 at 8:24 pm
TravisDBA (5/23/2012)
Unfortunately, too many people in this business look at things exactly that way. 😀
I'm all in favor of making my job easier. I'm all in favor of making other people's job easier. And I very much do both.
But I'm not going to make it easier for someone else to do my job and I don't fault anyone for that attitude in this day and age of double digit unemployment, massive layoffs, companies that are laying off the more expensive long term employees for freshers and people who have been laid off for so long they'll write code for minimum wage.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
May 24, 2012 at 3:03 am
Jeff Moden (5/23/2012)
TravisDBA (5/23/2012)
Unfortunately, too many people in this business look at things exactly that way. 😀I'm all in favor of making my job easier. I'm all in favor of making other people's job easier. And I very much do both.
But I'm not going to make it easier for someone else to do my job and I don't fault anyone for that attitude in this day and age of double digit unemployment, massive layoffs, companies that are laying off the more expensive long term employees for freshers and people who have been laid off for so long they'll write code for minimum wage.
Trouble is that it's not your job; it's the company's job, and it's paying you to do it.
Imagine if you employed a gardener on an hourly rate and he insisted on cutting the lawn with a scythe instead of a lawn mower. Wouldn't you get rid of him pretty quickly? What if lawn mowers weren't a well known invention and you didn't have the knowledge to question his methods? Would you sympathise with him that adopting a lawnmower might end up "doing himself out of his job", or is he actually just ripping you off?
You, Jeff, have been a hugely valued contributor here for such a long time that your value is patently obvious. I don't think any automation is going to make it easier for someone else to do your job, because automation cannot replace experience and knowledge. What automation may well do is make it easier for someone to do the bits of your job that keep you from concentrating on the important stuff. Yes, there are some companies that just chase the least cost, but most, in my opinion, chase best value, and that's not the same thing by a long chalk.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
May 24, 2012 at 7:36 am
Imagine if you employed a gardener on an hourly rate and he insisted on cutting the lawn with a scythe instead of a lawn mower. Wouldn't you get rid of him pretty quickly? What if lawn mowers weren't a well known invention and you didn't have the knowledge to question his methods? Would you sympathise with him that adopting a lawnmower might end up "doing himself out of his job", or is he actually just ripping you off?
I think what Jeff was driving at means you have to turn your analogy the other way round. Let say you're the gardener, and have a finely tuned sense of how short to set the blades, what power to set the lawn mower at, what time of day to cut the grass, what pattern to steer across the lawn etc. Then along comes a cheap gardener one day (17 years old and fresh out of school ;-)), grabs the lawn mower with it's default settings and drives it round the garden aiming for any patch of long grass they see. They make a mess of the beautifully striped lawn you'd worked so hard on. The owner might then consider that giving this lawnmower to the cheapest gardener was a false saving 😉
Kindest Regards,
Frank Bazan
May 24, 2012 at 8:03 am
Frank Bazan (5/24/2012)The owner might then consider that giving this lawnmower to the cheapest gardener was a false saving 😉
Wouldn't the guy with more experience be hired back pretty darned quick?
A sensible owner would have given the 17 year old a trial between the times the usual gardener comes by and seen how it works out before letting the more experienced guy go.
The owner would also have learnt his lesson (hopefully) and wouldn't do anything so foolish again having had his stripes ruined.
May 24, 2012 at 8:23 am
stephanie.sullivan (5/24/2012)
Frank Bazan (5/24/2012)The owner might then consider that giving this lawnmower to the cheapest gardener was a false saving 😉
Wouldn't the guy with more experience be hired back pretty darned quick?
A sensible owner would have given the 17 year old a trial between the times the usual gardener comes by and seen how it works out before letting the more experienced guy go.
The owner would also have learnt his lesson (hopefully) and wouldn't do anything so foolish again having had his stripes ruined.
But this isn't about costly experience vs cheap 'n' cheerful. Used by someone with experience, the lawnmower will achieve just as good (if not better) results in a fraction of the time. Therefore, in the stated analogy, there aren't two options; there are three:
If the gardener chooses option 2 instead of 3, the owner of the lawn just pays through the nose for no extra benefit. But that's OK, of course, 'cos you wouldn't expect the gardener to accept automation that might lessen his job, would you? Yeah, right.....
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
May 24, 2012 at 8:46 am
Wouldn't the guy with more experience be hired back pretty darned quick?
Yes, maybe a year or so later when he/she has run through all his/her savings and unemployment benefits, but probably at half what he was making before ,and he/she would probably gladly take it too. This is why companies tend to go after high salaried positions first. They know they are going to get them back again, sooner or later. The company wins in the long run. Because, you see, it's all about bottom line today.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
May 24, 2012 at 8:46 am
Ha ha - fair point. I guess on balance, that you need an owner who know's when to use option 3, but also understands that there are times when only option 2 is going to work... edges, grass that's just too long etc
I love the fact that a SSC discussion has turned to lawnmower men! A good analogy by the way 😉
Kindest Regards,
Frank Bazan
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