RE: Question about time accounting at your work
- From: "Zelli, Brian" <Brian.Zelli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "'oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:02:08 -0400
We will be implementing something at my current employer and it will be tied to
our time and attendance system. My previous jobs we had to do status reports.
I found the easiest way to capture my tasks were to use my day calendar on my
desk and jot down what I did for the day. Then at the end of the week or month
convert it to the status report. Very simple to do. Very low tech but useful.
My bosses used to tell me I didn't work on enough projects. But I was
responsible for keeping 14 plants running oracle applications and 2 plants
running sql server. I was nicknamed the patch master and lock smith because of
these apps. Patching alone took up the majority of my time if any of you
working with oracle apps can atest to. Then replying to helpdesk tickets and
assisting developers. I kept telling them there was no time to be put on a
new project. "But you are just not visible......"
I tell people a DBA is like an offensive lineman in football. Do your job and
no one notices. But get a penalty and they announce your number to the
national audience.
I think a status report is a positve. Even if you show the same things over
and over. I think that DBA's find that there biggest fear. It doesn't look
like we are doing enough.......on paper. But if you start to list the things
out you would be surprized.
Although I firmly disagree with the poster below. I couldn't see creating a
situation. There is enough to do. Especially as we get into enhanced
security, compliance, separation of duties and project management besides DBA
type activities.
But would anyone be willing to share a template that maybe we can all look at
for capturing that "status"?
Brian
________________________________
From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Kellyn Pedersen [kjped1313@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 8:15 PM
To: 'oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'; ChrisDavid.Taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Question about time accounting at your work
Although I don't have to do this in my current position, I've actually
recommended time tracking for DBA's as a lead. The reason was simple and one
you mentioned below- rarely do anyone other than DBA's know what the value of
a DBA is!
We are commonly the first group to be shaved off from during budget cuts and
the first position to be opened up again when the cycle of value realization
rears it's ugly head... :)
I also think it's incredibly important to show the value of your work and how
much a DBA can provide in long-term saving to a company. Primarily my skills
keep my employers/companies from making unnecessary hardware purchases,
pre-mature upgrades to systems, experiencing outages that could have been
pro-actively stopped and ensuring that development to production is done right
and not twice.
I have worked with DBA's and developers that thought the only way to show they
were an asset meant they should create situations that required their
intervention so that they could prove that they were necessary to the busines.
In my eyes, that kind of "superman" behavior only makes them into a liability,
not an asset.
Kellyn Pedersen
Multi-Platform DBA
I-Behavior
--- On Fri, 9/18/09, Taylor, Chris David <ChrisDavid.Taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
From: Taylor, Chris David <ChrisDavid.Taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Question about time accounting at your work
To: "'oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Friday, September 18, 2009, 2:28 PM
Ok fellow full-time employee DBAs I have a question. (Not for contractors :)
How many of you use project accounting at your place of work. Where every hour
has to be accounted for against projects, or maintenance or some other code?
I was basically told I'm not "visible enough" --- this is 1 year after
receiving a ton of awards and accolades for solving a problem at one of our
sister companies. Now it "appears" that my value to the company is being
questioned. I imagine questions like "What does he do all day?" are being
asked.
Usually I lump database support into 1 group, and patches/maintenance into
another group and performance tuning into a 3rd group. Now, I'm goign to have
to start micromanaging my hours. I work for an internal IT department at a
large corporation. I think we bill the other departments for services, but not
sure.
Anyone else have to deal with this?
Chris Taylor
Sr. Oracle DBA
Ingram Barge Company
Nashville, TN 37205
Office: 615-517-3355
Cell: 615-354-4799
Email:
chris.taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<http://us.mc320.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=chris.taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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