course for DBAs in bureaucracies?
- From: Patrice sur GMail <patrice.boivin@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: ORACLE-L <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 11:40:26 -0300
I asked Oracle educators once if Oracle offered such a course, they
chuckled, said it might actually end up being more popular than technology
courses, but no.
Seems to me no one knows what to do with bureaucracies: If they did, they
wouldn't exist anymore.
Any tips or tricks in this regard (other than just saying "keep your
organization small")?
I was told when I learned Oracle initially that shutdown abort | startup
restrict is always faster than shutdown immediate. My original Oracle
instructor for 7.3 added that "shutdown normal" was never used, it's
useless because some users never log off. Sometimes therefore you do a
quick check, and if people just won't log off and something needs to be
done now, cut them off.
The Unix kill -kill command is useful in that regard as well, when Kill
Session takes too long.
Some examples I've seen over the past 20 years:
One "effective" manager once told me it's always easier to obtain
forgiveness than to get permission ahead of time. Esp. if it was to help
move things along. But over time things became more difficult for that
person because people didn't forget.
Another (1980s, dumb terminal environment) used to keep hardware parts
hidden in drawers because he couldn't get approval for replacements when
they were needed. At that location (in another city from where I live now)
the management of IT groups didn't know much about IT or care because they
were mostly interested only in their own careers. They spent money on what
they wanted to spend it on, but didn't even bother asking the people who
were doing the actual work what they needed.
One unix system admin (now retired) used to work every night for 3-5 extra
hours, often logged in via modem at night to check on backups or to launch
jobs at 2-5AM, never submitted his overtime because it would never be
approved. I think at first years ago his overtime was refused but the work
still needed to be done and he cared, so he just kept working. The
director above him knew it was happening for 10+ years but turned a blind
eye because he didn't have enough authority to hire more staff and if he
put in all the time it would "look bad". Somehow when someone is capable
and committed to his work it "looks bad". This same sysad used to submit
support calls to Veritas reporting NetBackup bugs and provide them with
code they could use to fix the bug or work around it. He cared about his
work but never received any kind of recognition for it. We noticed one of
his suggestions was even copy pasted into a Veritas tech note word for
word, with no reference or thank you to our colleague.
Another systems admin / project lead I knew, now retired, some years ago
pulled the plug on a Windows server "by mistake" because he couldn't get
the bureaucracy to allow him to migrate off old hardware to new and the
migration project had a deadline to meet. Once the server was "down" he
migrated it and was done pretty quickly. Lucky for him he didn't run into
any major snags during his hardware migration. He told me he was near
retirement, paid his dues and by that point he didn't care whether he was
ruffling some people's feathers, he was going to finish the project on time
regardless.
I wonder how often that kind of thing happens. It's pretty disheartening.
Shouldn't organizations work better? I wonder now when I buy things in
stores how much of my hard-earned dollars are wasted on bureaucratic
inefficiency.
In any case if you care about your systems, how do you keep them running
well in bureaucratic / corporate environments? Any tricks or tips?
I noticed that many people do their best at first, then reach the point
where they realize they will burn out; to protect their health they stop
caring and just put in their hours. There has to be a better way.
-- Patrice
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