We hire a lot of DBA's based on resumes and a few minutes conversation, and we
hire people from all kinds of cultural traditions. I think the key trait I'm
looking for is good judgement. A lot of what we do is scary. You have to be
able to overcome fear and paralysis of doing the wrong thing and not be such a
risk-taker that you're a danger to the enterprise. That being said, people
don't tell the *entire* truth on their resumes. Now the stage is set for the
communication problem. I make a small assignment to unlock an account or write
a simple shell script. I hear crickets. I get suspicious. Some people
cannot admit they don't know how to do something. They get defensive and
ashamed. I can't fire everybody who disappoints me in some way I need to
train and bring my DBA up to speed. It's easier when they are honest I do
hire noobs. I just want to know they are noobs when I get them.
Essentially what you are saying below is, "I already know how to communicate"
and would be offended if somebody thought you didn't. The very fact that you
responded to this tell us something about you (good :D). Well, some people
don't communicate well. As a manager I need to know what you are working on so
I can either give you more of it or take some away if you are flagging. I have
never personally met most of the people who work for me in this brave new
world. I get that you don't want to be bugged by the kind of manager who
requires constant handholding. I don't do that. I think I have a pretty
light touch for people who are self-starters and work well independently. I
get a four line status report once a day. I do require people to check into
chat when they start work so that I know they are alive. Otherwise I manage
through incident tickets or change requests.
Our fairly large organization of 300 or so people seems to be functioning well
having moved to nearly 100% remote work. I don’t think we've ever been more
efficient. You have to learn how to do that.
Donald Freeman
Database Administrator
Imagine One Technology & Management, Ltd.
Robin Hood Road (RHR) Facility, Norfolk, VA 23513
Telephone: (757)-852-7724 Commercial
Telephone: (717)-497-1037 Mobile
Telephone: (757)-852-7777 PMO-IT Help Desk
donald.freeman.ctr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: Andre Maasikas <amaasikas@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2020 4:04 AM
To: Freeman, Donald G. CTR <donald.freeman.ctr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: list, oracle <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Non-DoD Source] Re: DBA Team Communications
On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 5:17 PM Freeman, Donald G. CTR
<donald.freeman.ctr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Haven't contributed anything in a long time. I had to send this to my team
this morning and thought it may be useful for other dba team leaders.
Rule 1
If I ask you to do, look at, provide, review, fix, report, respond,
create, delete, or move something in an email or other communication
respond, with an affirmation that you have received the direction.
Answer, OK, Got It, Roger, Will Do or something indicating you have
received the communication. Because when you don't do that I am left
wondering if you got it. I don't want to wonder. It makes my head
hurt and forces me to ask you again, "Did you get that?" That's inefficient.
Rule 2granted, sure, but have no trouble following up.
If I ask you more than one thing in an email then in your response
answer all the questions, not just the first one. Take as many emails as you
like, but answer all the questions so I don't have to circle back and
ask you again.
Rule 3
If it's important, I'll put in a ticket. Then nobody has to remember
because the ticket won't go away by itself.
Rule 4
Be thoughtful in dropping people off an email thread. When I send an
email with a distro list to you carefully consider before you turn a public
communication into a private one. I know you don't know all these people and
are nervous about being judged by a bunch of random people on an
email. I generally don't lard up emails with people who don't have a
need to know about the subject.
If you turn it into a private one and give me information that
everyone needs to know then I have to send ANOTHER email to the same list of
people to communicate your thoughts. So, if you have questions you don't
want to viewed by all then call me on the phone or send me a chat.
Or, you can decline to answer it to everybody and say something like,
"I'd like to take this off-line before I answer" or, "I'll call you,"
but don't break the chain. Got it?
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