RE: Definition of Top Class DBA
- From: "Herring, David" <HerringD@xxxxxxx>
- To: "sethmiller.sm@xxxxxxxxx" <sethmiller.sm@xxxxxxxxx>, "oracledbaquestions@xxxxxxxxx" <oracledbaquestions@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 17:52:21 -0500
I agree with Seth on this big time! Covering up a screwup takes so much wasted
energy as you either have make up a lie or spend all sorts of effort to cover
it up. That's WAY too complex for me. I'd rather fess up and be done with it.
About 5 yrs ago while supporting a client I made a change in prod, during the
day, without proper permission. The intention was good (we were in a
near-critical situation) but as luck would have it the change hit a bug in 10.2
and forced us to eventually rebuild our standby. First thing I did was make
sure everyone was aware that I did it and didn't have the proper approval.
Why? I'd like to say that I'm such a valiant person but it was a lot more
simple to just admit it and avoid all sorts of investigation and finger
pointing. It's too hard to remember what you have covered up in the past -
just point at me and be done with it, then on to fixing the problem. BTW, last
year I accepted an offer from this client.
An important point in asking questions like what Seth is getting at is making
sure you don't lead the person to what you're looking for. Ask as general
questions as possible on the fallout to see how the person reacted and what
they did. Some people are very proud of things "they got away with".
Dave Herring
From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Seth Miller
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2014 11:16 AM
To: oracledbaquestions@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: ORACLE-L
Subject: Re: Definition of Top Class DBA
Really great points here. I'll add another one that is very important but
nothing to do with knowledge.
Every one of us reading these emails has done something to disrupt business;
dropped a production table, compressed a live data file, rm -rf on the wrong
directory (yes I've done all of these). This is part of the learning process
and inherent in the nature of what we do. The important part comes afterward.
The professional owns up to their mistakes, regardless of the consequences or
even if the problem can't be traced back to them. It only takes one time of
someone blaming a colleague, another group or just outright lying about an
incident to make that person unreliable and untrustworthy.
There may be blowback at the beginning but people will respect someone who
takes the more difficult path. Fortunately, this is the exception so those that
do the right thing and own up to their mistakes stand out among their peers.
Seth Miller
On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Dba DBA <oracledbaquestions@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
People often leave out something important... personality, willingness to share
information, being articulate, and learning more than just the DB.
I have worked with some excellent DBAs who I didn't want to even talk to. They
cause drama and send out these emails with massive lists of people on it
whenever they decide for someone reason they don't like anything. Cause drama.
(its not just DBAs that do this). Really good people don't cause unnecessary
drama. Not that many people do this... however, there is a real popular fantasy
writer who put it like this. Patrick Rothfuss gets occasional hate mail from
fans because he is a slow writer. Its not very often. He says its like having a
turd in your rice crispies. You can't exactly eat around the turd.
Willingness to share info: Sending people a link to the doc and saying RTFM is
not real helpful. For people who are not experts reading the docs is tough.
When I need to look at something new I actually look for blog entries first
because someone else dissected the blogs. If people didn't do that, there would
be no point in good DBAs writing these blogs...
More than Just the DB: if its all the DB, then you don't know that much. One
thing I have seen from Oak Table members is they know alot about unix and
operating systems. Quite a few of them have clearly read algorithm books. I
have read a few myself. I know some C (not alot) from school. I find it
helpful. I also try to listen to the developers and sometimes I read their
code. If you just know the DB, then developers will often blow you off, but if
you can speak their language they are more responsive. I see alot of that from
Oak Table members.
Articulate: It takes a lot of practice to explain technical issues to people
who don't know it as well as you or don't know your discipline. If you are very
good you can explain things without using oracle jargon and simplify. It takes
alot of practice to do this... Again, I point to the Oracle blogs. Jonathan
Lewis and others are very good at this.
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