Career
T-SQL Tuesday #114 Puzzle Party
This months T-SQL Tuesday comes from Matthew McGiffen who has given us the topic of “Puzzles”, thank you for a great topic!
Puzzles can be fun or frustrating, but I like them because it can be a great way to showcase who you are and how you work. For example, I was given a puzzle from a company that was interested in me but wanted to know how I approached specific problems. They gave me a simple SQL query and three word problems to go along with it. My reply back illustrated how I approach problems, document findings, performance test, and also work to obtain business requirements.
T-SQL Tuesday #112 Dipping into my Cookie Jar
This month Shane asks us to reach into our “cookie jar” and pull out some life lessons. Thank you for an interesting topic to think and write about!
Shane also describes for us what this term means in our context:
Dipping into the Cookie Jar is about when the going gets tough and you don’t think you can handle anymore, then you think back about your accomplishments and take some sustenance from them. You dip back into that cookie jar and use whatever energy that provides to keep going.
2018 Wrap Up!
I wanted to take a moment and reflect on 2018, it was an incredibly successful year for me and I want to thank everyone who has helped make that possible. The SQL community is always responsive and helpful, my co-workers are wonderful, and of course; my family and friends are always supportive and understanding. So thank you everyone for helping me hit my goals!
So what happened in 2018? Let’s start with the easiest thing to visualize, people reading my content!
T-SQL Tuesday #108 Learning non SQL Server technologies
This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Malathi Mahadevan. Our topic comes during the PASS Summit, a SQL event filled with learning, networking, and the #SQL Family! So it is only fitting that our topic is regarding learning and education. Thank you Malathi for hosting this month and for the great topic!
The topic is to pick one thing that is not SQL Server that we want to or already know. How do we or did we learn this skill and how do we add it to our resume?
T-SQL Tuesday #105 The Wall
Link to Wayne Sheffield’s website, host of T-SQL Tuesday #105.In my career, there are three categories of brick walls I have seen that stand out. The most common situations are; when you are unable to figure something out but is possible to resolve, when you become blocked because of a person, and finally, when you become blocked because of policy. I’ve been fortunate to work with amazing folks in the past and I can’t say there was a single person trying to block me from achieving a task because of a vendetta or even really ideologies. I would like to consider myself a reasonable person however, so I can typically find a middle ground. At the end of the day, does the solution you present achieve the goals of the organization? That is essentially the end all question, if you can present your reasoning in a way that makes business sense logically, you will rarely run into people who will try and stop you. (Hopefully.)
Hurray! I passed the 70-762 exam!
Hurray! I passed my 70-762 exam! Passing both the 70-761 and the 70-762 means I am officially a Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate for Developing 2016 SQL Server Databases!On March 3rd I posted my spreadsheet and study guide to the 70-762 which I followed. I also posted prior to my test exactly how I studied. So if you want to see how I used the spreadsheet study guide or want to read about how I studied, you can use the links below and read those pieces. Likewise, if you want to read about why and who someone should become certified, I have created a post on that as well!
Why and who should become certified?
There are three camps of people I’ve met when it comes to discussing certificates in IT.
- Oh, that’s nice to have, but I’m indifferent otherwise. (95% of the people.)
- Oh, you are certified?! That’s amazing! I need to talk to you all about that! (3% of the people.)
- Oh… you are certified? So you’re one of those paper DBA’s huh? (Cue them throwing your resume in the trash.) (2% of the people.)
Certs can have a bad rap because there are many certs that you can achieve that hold little weight. Like when you complete a couple hour video training course that you pretty much need to just click through and at the end, you can pay money to have them issue you a cert.
How I studied for the 70-762 exam
Back in March I created a spreadsheet to help me track my studying for the 70-762 Developing SQL Databases exam and posted about some of my resources. I plan on taking the 70-762 on Monday, 2018-07-23. I wanted to share my experiences studying for the exam prior to taking it and the methodology to my studying. After the test on Monday I plan on posting about how my exam went (within the rules of the NDA) and I plan on making a few posts later about why and who should become certified.
What is the average day of a DBA? (Part 4 of 4)
Steve Jones has asked for some folks in the community to talk about what it’s like to work in our field across four posts. So how do I talk about my job across four job posts? If you didn’t read part 1, you can click here to read about what the day to day is like.
My four series post is structured as:
- Day to day, what is normal? What are 95% of my experiences?
- Best days ever, these are the highlights.
- Worst days ever, these don’t happen all of the time and this is what nightmares are made out of.
- Weird days, Brent Ozar said it best when he said Database Administration is weird.
The weird days of being a DBA.
You can run into a lot of weird things being a DBA, but I don’t think the topics I’m going to discuss are what you are expecting. Most of the weird things I run into are design structures or processes in place that go against best practice or are not typically practical. Kind of like if the past admin gave out Neapolitan ice cream instead of vanilla. Everything is custom, unique, and different, whereas I try to instantiate things as “vanilla” as possible. If things are predictable and implemented consistently, it’s easier for anyone to come in and troubleshoot or support.
What is the average day of a DBA? (Part 3 of 4)
Steve Jones has asked for some folks in the community to talk about what it’s like to work in our field across four posts. So how do I talk about my job across four job posts? If you didn’t read part 1, you can click here to read about what the day to day is like.
My four series post is structured as:
- Day to day, what is normal? What are 95% of my experiences?
- Best days ever, these are the highlights.
- Worst days ever, these don’t happen all of the time and this is what nightmares are made out of.
- Weird days, Brent Ozar said it best when he said Database Administration is weird.
The worst days ever for a DBA.
Some of the worst days you can have are when they are spent on firefighting. Your projects don’t get worked on so deadlines approach faster and you aren’t having the chance to work on being proactive because you are actively fixing the problem. What really makes those days bad though, is if policy and procedure are what’s allowing this to happen.