Hey DBA Managers, Don’t Be Like the Secret Service!
October 2, 2014
Continuing from yesterday’s advice to DBAs… Three Four (hey it’s for managers, brownie points…) lessons for management from the Secret Service “issues”. Trust But Verify At the White House “upper management” at Secret Service didn’t realize how bad things were with recent lapses. At least I hope they didn’t and I’m going to assume they … Read more
Hey DBAs, Don’t Be Like the Secret Service!
October 1, 2014
Last week, I ripped a story from the headlines to draw lessons for Technologists from – it was about the Secret Service lapses that allowed a fence jumper to get into the threshold of the White House residence. That was bad. This week, though, we’ve learned of some additions to the story that makes it … Read more
How to Set Up SQL Server Alerts and Know if SQL Server is Healthy [Quick Tip]
September 30, 2014
SQL Server alerts let you know what is happening on your instance. They let you become a proactive DBA and know about problems potentially before your users do. If you don’t have a monitoring tool and it isn’t in the budget right now, setting up and monitoring SQL Server alerts is a free and very … Read more
DBA Reminders from an FAA Fire
September 29, 2014
Last Friday a long time employee set fire to the FAA’s Chicago Control Center. You can read about the fire and the 2,000+ flight cancellations that resulted here and here. Keeping with the spirit of ripping lessons from headlines like I did in last week’s learning communication skills lesson from a police shooting, I think there are some lessons us … Read more
Slow Down and Communicate!
September 26, 2014
Earlier this week I ripped a headline for blog post inspiration. Looks like the week will end that way, too. Before you ask – this isn’t about the PASS organizational struggles – though I think it applies there – and looking inside I think it applies to me there. It also applies to parenting. I’m writing … Read more
Hey Techies.. Try Simple Solutions First!
September 23, 2014
Last week a man jumped the fence at the home of the President of the United States. This is a fairly routine occurrence. Except he made it to the door to the “residence” portion of the White House – where the first family lives. And made it through the unlocked front door – where he … Read more
Four Things We Wish We Knew
September 11, 2014
A couple weeks ago I posted 4 Attitudes I Wish I Had When I Started – it was 4 pieces of advice I’d love to give to my old self that I’ve either learned the hard way or am still learning. I also asked others to contribute. I specifically tagged a couple people and they tagged some others. … Read more
4 Attitudes I Wish I Had Earlier as a DBA
August 27, 2014
Outside of Work is Really Important This one is first and longest for a reason. Time – it keeps going. It doesn’t pause while you have a busy month at the office. That means the things that matter the most in life keep happening. Whether you are there or not. Right now. Right this moment – especially … Read more
DBA Tunnel Vision
August 22, 2014
One of the things hammered into you in Firefighting training, Law Enforcement training, defensive gun use training and many other forms of training is “Do not develop tunnel vision.” There is a reason they emphasize this concept so much, too. Lot of folks get killed each year by tunnel vision. Do you think this phenomenon doesn’t … Read more
More Soft Skills From The Ambulance
August 14, 2014
A couple days ago I posted some of the lessons I learned in the back of an ambulance that have translated into my career as a SQL Server Consultant or a DBA. I promised I had a few more. Here they are. “I Don’t Know What You’ve Been Through” Empathy. My friend Tom LaRock wrote an … Read more