RE: how to prevent DBA burnout?

I agree about the disk space and memory.  It seems to take more than one loss 
of service outage to pry disk space, memory and/or CPU out of management.   The 
number of times I have had to argue my case before stonewalling management 
burns me out and makes me want to leave a job.

 

What's also frustrating is when staff DBAs are asked to do performance analyses 
and it is apparent that more system resources are required, management suggests 
running Gather Schema Statistics more frequently before they revisit the 
possibility that the DBA might be right.  I even had one client who called in 
very expensive consultants to review the performance analysis I did, (also ran 
their own performance analysis tool) only to agree in the end that more CPUs 
were definately needed.  

 

I wish I had the freedom to act like I had in the late 1990's and early 2000's. 
 Before Sarbanes-Oxley.  DBA work isn't fun anymore, but it pays the bills (not 
as well as it used to). 

 

Vicki Pierce

Sr. Oracle Apps DBA


Subject: RE: how to prevent DBA burnout?
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:59:16 -0500
From: Chris.Taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


Give them more storage and RAM!!  :)
 
 
 
Chris Taylor
Sr. Oracle DBA
Ingram Barge Company
Nashville, TN 37205
Office: 615-517-3355
Cell: 615-354-4799
Email: chris.taylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 



From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Jerry Cunningham
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 8:45 AM
To: Oracle L
Subject: how to prevent DBA burnout?



Hi all...
 
I came across this question on twitter (http://twitter.com/Michael_Corey). How 
do you prevent DBA burnout?
 
I know there are a lot of smart people on this list - any thoughts? I replied 
via my blog (more than 140 chars!)... here are my 2 cents:
 
===

1) Communicate with them regularly.  Forget business/corporate formality - 
everybody you work with is simply a person. From the security guard at the 
front desk to the CEO. How is life? Are you happy? What is stressing you out? 
If there are problems, what can I do to help?

2) Don’t forget how hard it is to find good people. At a previous job, when 
interviewing for a vacancy, I had interviewed for weeks without a promising 
candidate. This made me realize how good the people we had were, and I told 
them so. I told them, that while they were working harder due to the staffing 
shortage, I was not going to settle for less than the high standard they had 
set.

3) If somebody resigns (and you value them) - make them a counter offer 
immediately. It amazes me how often this does not happen. Or, the employee is 
asked “what can I do to keep you?”. Too vague - make a concrete offer.

===
 
 
Jerry
http://jerrycunningham.wordpress.com
 
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