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RE: Manager decrees "his" data warehouse design. Help!

From: Lowes, Harry (NESL-IT) <Harry.Lowes_at_npowernorthern.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 02:43:19 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.0041AC1F.20020228024319@fatcity.com>


Cable-hoarding boss? Magic!

We had a completely non-technical manager a while ago. Our main billing system developed silent memory errors that were corrupting the data until one day the system wouldn't come back (Ingres, don't ask). In a high-powered emergency meeting this manager, all red-faced and full of hell asks what the problem was. "Memory corruption" someone replies. "Right! Then why are we using memory! Get the database out of memory. I want it running off disk!" Classic!

Cheers,

Harry Lowes
Database Administrator,
npower Northern Limited

mailto:harry.lowes_at_npowernorthern.com

-----Original Message-----
Sent: 27 February 2002 18:29
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Both. I was a consultant to this pharmaceutical company at the time and I honestly liked the job that I was doing, so I stuck it out. After I got over the initial shock of having an insane boss, I found the whole thing amusing. Seems he didn't trust the data center with cables for some weird reason, and after the company relieved him of his post (OH so gently), his garage had something like $30K worth of cables in it. They didn't press charges. But, MAN, there were some stories.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 12:14 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Hi Bambi,

> I once had a manager who was a paranoid schizophrenic. BEEN THERE! A former boss from hell got very angry (there's a reason they call it "mad") because he tried to fire me and found out he couldn't. Even so, he liked having me around because he needed me. I hung in there because the company was paying for my masters degree at the time. Later, after I got the degree, I left for greener pastures within the company. In the exit interview my former boss accused me of abandonning him, congratulated me on my move, and literally wept at my departure. He confessed he had been trying to "get my goat" because he was a 20 year military man who managed by intimidation. But he respected me because I was never intimidated, always stood my ground, behaved as a gentleman, and served him faithfully (his words). Two years later I saw my former boss from hell on the 6 o'clock news being put into a police squad car and with yellow crime scene ribbons around his house. Turns out that while he was being laid off he said things which were interpreted as threats on the lives of certain managers. This was taken seriously and the police confiscated all his guns.

I guess the lesson is that eventually the truth will come out. The decision remains with us as to whether to put up with the insanity or move on. Do you have a high insanity tolerance level or are you just a masochist?

Steve Orr

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 9:23 AM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

I once had a manager who was a paranoid schizophrenic. Very exciting, let me tell you. But, one thing he told me in a rather roundabout paranoid way is that the way you deal with crazy bosses who were out to get you is to make friends with other people at your boss' level in the organization, hopefully who report to the same person your boss does, and let them know in a laughing kind of way what your boss wants you to do. Never be confrontational or speak ill of your boss, because, of course, that will wind up biting you in the ass, too. But, that way, when your boss starts badmouthing you and blaming you for everything that goes wrong that was his fault, you'll be insulated from having anything bad happen to you as your friends will close ranks around you and stop your boss from making your life a living hell.

And then he threw his coffee cup across the room, turned bright red and started shrieking about how the VP of R&D had always hated him. God, I loved that job. Many, *MANY* wonderful stories came out of that place.

Anyway, I never thought to follow this advice, let alone share it, but, it sounds like, in this case, you have a crazy boss, and if you stick around, you're going to need a little safety.

Of course, posting your resume isn't a bad approach either.

HTH,
Bambi.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 11:48 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

I've lost patience, my temper, and I'm about to quit a job because the IT manager has decreed that we will have "his" data warehouse running within 24 hours, and we will use his design.

1 - We are NOT to use any kind of views, not even materailzed views.
2 - we are not to do any computations, summaries or rollups
3 - we are to have everything in one table
4 - "the" table name and column names will be meaningful to any clerk
5 - we are not to "start" or "snowflake" designs.  "That's just a bunch of 
high power talk."
6 - all users will be trained to use MS Access to get at "their" data. (These are users that were just converted off from "green screen" teminals within the last 45-days, to Windows 98 with 64k RAM.) 7 - We are not to just copy the legacy transactions. 8 - We are to load into "an" Oracle table, all legacy transction data because "we don't want to limit how or what a user will look at" 9 - It is not necessary to talk with the users to see what data they want to look at, or the atomic level. "They are smart enough to fighure this out on their own. We just need to provide them the data." 10 - There shall be no long term maintenance required by "the" dw.

Any ideas on how to deal with this situation?

For tomorrow, I've done a CTAS from a materialized view that we created to support one departments known requirements.

Don
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Author: Orr, Steve
  INET: sorr_at_rightnow.com

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Author: Bellows, Bambi
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Author: Lowes, Harry (NESL-IT)
  INET: Harry.Lowes_at_npowernorthern.com
Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California        -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
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To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). Received on Thu Feb 28 2002 - 04:43:19 CST

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