RE: OT - Getting fired for database oops

  • From: "Goulet, Richard" <Richard.Goulet@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <dofreeman@xxxxxxxxxxx>, <cjnewman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 13:39:59 -0400

Donald,

        This is one case where I don't feel sorry for the guy.  As I
stated in another thread we all represent our companies in our dealings
with clients, consultants, etc...  If we don't stop and think about what
were doing that can lead to a bad experience which could cause all kinds
of trouble.  I was put into a similar position a couple of years ago
where we were going to be doing outsourced offsite dba work for a
company in Chicago.  I was sent out to scout out the work and move them
off of Windows onto HP-UX.  Not a problem, right??  When I arrived I
found the recently hired green and wet behind the ears DBA who was
suppose to just observe.  Long and short of it, I did the observing and
he did the driving.  We parted on a very favorable note and although the
offsite DBA contract was cancelled, they still hung onto us as
consultants whenever he got into trouble.  Worked out wonderfully on
both sides.  Except that I don't like consulting that is. 


Dick Goulet
Senior Oracle DBA
PAREXEL International

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Freeman, Donald
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 1:27 PM
To: 'cjnewman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: OT - Getting fired for database oops

I had a contract DBA try to sabotage me, got caught, and got fired.   He
had been recruited by a consulting firm with a promise of a long term
contract.  When he arrived he found me, a full time employee, basically
hired to do the same job.  I didn't have any experience so the story
changed to, "He will mentor you."   He didn't do a lot of that.  He did
not adjust the changing circumstance and decided to ignore me.  Since I
was on probation and we actually reported to different managers, him to
the project manager, and me to the DBA manager (who didn't like each
other) we were doomed to have problems.  I needed to make a good showing
to get through my probation.   I couldn't do that if I was locked out of
what was happening.

Long story short, I studied Oracle, took all the online courses I could,
got my certification.   His attitude was noted and his contract, up in 2
months, was not renewed.   I had kind of a "graduation" exercise to
migrate two of the environments to new servers.  While I was doing the
second one things started going wrong.  I had moved a copy of the
database and was trying to CREATE DATABASE RESET LOGS etc and started
getting weird errors.  I kept going over it again and again and every
time I got to the point where I was about to succeed something broke.
After hours of doing that, and him sticking his head in my office, I had
a flash and realized he was doing something.   I looked at the pfile and
noticed that the modified date/time stamp indicated something had
changed at a time when I had not changed it.   I opened it and selected
all the text and saw a blue line going off the page to the right.  I
went to the end of that line and found a period inserted there.  

I saved the file as it was, made a copy, corrected it and started the
database.  I showed my boss, the project manager, and the team lead.
Just before lunch he was asked to help me fix the problem as I was
"stuck."   With all of us standing behind him he was steered onto the
pfile and asked if he saw anything wrong with it.  He said he didn't.
We let him stew a few minutes and then adjourned for lunch.  He was told
to leave it alone and we would reconvene after lunch and work on it
together.   When I got back from lunch his consultant manager met me in
the parking lot and announced that, "You were right, he went straight
back to his desk and when I came in announced that he had found and
fixed the problem.  When I asked him what it was he told me, 'Corruption
in the pfile.'"   The guy left early and was scheduled to return after
hours and do some work.  They disabled his badge.  When he came in and
couldn't get in he called his manager who told him to report to the
consult
 ant headquarters the next morning when he was fired.

Although he tried hard to screw me, to make me look like a dunce, and
possibly get his contract renewed I feel management really screwed this
up from the beginning.  I was horrified by what he did and what happened
to him.  He could have gone to jail for what he did. He did call me
later and apologize although there wasn't a thing I could do for him.  I
still feel it was totally unnecessary for management to let us "sort it
out."  It cost this guy his career.  

Donald Freeman
Database Administrator II
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Department of Health
Bureau of Information Technology
2150 Herr Street
Harrisburg, PA 17103
dofreeman@xxxxxxxxxxx
 

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Newman, Christopher
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 11:39 AM
To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: OT - Getting fired for database oops

A colleague and I were just discussing DBA's getting fired for screwing
something up/failing to do something (Not for being generally poor
employees like showing up late, etc).  Neither of us had heard any
stories of either scenario.  I know we sometimes have slightly off topic
discussions on the list, so I was wondering if anyone would share any
stories.

Chris Newman
Database Specialist
AITS, University of Illinois
217-333-5429

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