RE: Remote or Not? Was: Production Oracle DBA Needed in Rocheste

Personally I like being in the office environment and interacting with other members of my species :-) I do get the opportunity to work from home on a fairly regular basis and I do take it when I really need to focus on something but I do miss the buzz of being in the workplace if I'm away for too long. Working from home is ideal around the holidays and those days when you have overindulged in whatever your favourite tipple is the night before and driving into work would be too risky :-)

FWIW - there are two DBAs in this country (UK) working for our company and we live about 300 miles apart. I work from the Data Centre, with the UNIX SAs and the hardware in the North East of England, he works from an office in London with the developers. It works well (esp. for me !!) and we meet up on a regular basis for status meetings and catch ups.

Regards

Lee

-----Original Message-----
Sent: 25 March 2002 23:08
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Rocheste

Hi all,

Thanks Chris for that nicely worded e-mail. It *is* true that Development work is easier to farm off elsewhere where it is cheaper, and even Oracle Corporation is farming out Internet-based Support and Development work elsewhere. These teams typically work with a bunch of junior developers somewhere else working on the major chunk of the project, fronted by one or two 'implementors' - typically senior and more 'culturally aware' locally working with the users/businesses they serve. This Development model does lend itself to such offloading.

However, I haven't heard of similar farming out of day-to-day DBA or SA services *outside* of the US. These services are perceived as 'Business critical' jobs still and Management wants to see/hear the key-clicks, esp. when a Disaster occurs or something goes wrong. Steve Orr - the one who escaped this $$$ valley for the wide open spaces he loves - made the point that Remote working is more an organizational issue than a technical issue. Face-to-face and human touch-and-feel still is still required, and time zones are still an issue (even here in the States where the West and the East is separated by just 3 hours).

Having said that, I have to say that I am in the process of wrapping up a 'remote' performance troubleshooting mini-project for a previous client. VPNs, Previous association and familiarity with systems/personnel and the requirement of out-of-the-ordinary skills for a limited period drove this remote assignment, and it worked out successfully. I did suffer from the 3 hour timezone difference, though it worked to our advantages at times. I do also know that many DBAs have been 'farmed-out' to 'Remote DBA Services' within the country (counting Canada too - Pythian, TUSC, ...), and a number of cross-country tuning assignments (from Australia - need I say more!) have also worked out well.

On a personal front, I observe that (at least in the US) the urban/suburban cost-of-living is driving more and more remote workers (quite a number of IT workers, esp. DBAs) into the extended suburbia (100 miles or more, up from the current 50 mile radius), where these workers do come in once or twice a week, sometimes to 'branch offices' spread out among the various suburbs.... Hence, you could theoretically work as a DBA in a city somewhere else for an organization with HQs/DBs somewhere else, as long as you have access/presence of a remote office, and possibly fly down to the HQ once in a while. Remote workers still need to be in a community, with access to education, recreation and health servcies, so this will probably not be too far off the beaten path.

On another tack, there was a discussion on this list about Ari's cool tools - the PocketDBA/SA. I could theoretically be far away in a log cabin (Steve - are you listening?!) and still be connected to the office - the question is: Do you want to be? In other words, most tools for full remote capability are available. But would Damagement accept them and not have to see a warm body fill a seat?

John Kanagaraj

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Grabowy, Chris [mailto:cgrabowy_at_fcg.com]
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 12:46 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject: RE: RE: Production Oracle DBA Needed in Rochester, Minnesota
>
>
> Ahhh...be careful what you ask for. If that were truly the
> case, then you
> might not be able to find a job, since you would be outbid
> from someone
> working else where. Obviously, skills are a critical factor,
> but explain
> that to the bean counters...
>
> Some of the developers here are becoming very angry because
> some of the work
> has been "farmed-out" overseas because of their lower rates.
> It is a very
> interesting situation that I am quietly observing. The world
> is indeed
> becoming smaller.
>
> I have carefully worded this email in the hopes that I do not
> offend some of
> the VERY talented/god-like DBAs we have on this list that
> come a variety of
> locations around this great planet. I hope that I have succeeded.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 3:04 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
> Yeah, does anybody know what happened to the new Internet concept of
> "location doesn't matter"? I thought by now I could be sitting at home
> taking DBA assignments all over the country, if not over the world?
>
> Dennis Williams
> DBA
> Lifetouch, Inc.
> dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 11:44 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
> > If you need a change of location, you can get one easier...
> OK, now I understand what you meant.
>
> I can testify to the relocation potential because I recently
> escaped the
> Silicon Valley rat race to come up here to God's country.
> Nevertheless, I
> still fantasize about rendering remote DBA support via a laptop with
> multi-band satellite connectivity from a log cabin while
> snowed in at 10,000
> feet. (Or while lounging in a hammock on some Carribean Ilse.) While I
> support servers 1000's of miles away, employers like to see
> you and hear you
> tapping on the keyboard. Working and living ANYWHERE is not so much a
> technical problem as it is an organizational, human relations
> challenge.
> Sigh...
>
>
> Steve Orr
> Still in Bozeman, MONTANA!!!
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 10:04 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
> Well, up until about a couple of years ago, that was very
> true from what I
> experienced... Now, perhaps it takes a bit more work, but
> there seems to be
> enough demand around for the time being..... Perhaps number
> 10 should be
> rather:
>
> 10. If you need a change of location, you can get one easier
> than with other
> jobs.
>
> RF
>
> Robert G. Freeman - Oracle8i OCP
> Oracle DBA Technical Lead
> CSX Midtier Database Administration
>
> The Cigarette Smoking Man: Anyone who can appease a man's
> conscience can
> take his freedom away from him.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 12:04 PM
> To: 'ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com'
> Cc: Freeman, Robert
>
>
> > 10. So I can live where I choose.
> Oh really? How do you manage that?
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 9:23 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
> Hey, I got five scampers running around right now....
> youngest is 9 and the
> oldest is *gasp* 16....
>
> 10 Reasons I became a DBA
>
> 1. So I don't have to mow my own lawn
> 2. So I don't have to change my own oil.
> 3. So I don't have to move my own furniture.
> 4. So I can have 5 kids and a wife.
> 5. So I can afford two NICE cars (well, mostly nice until the
> kids get to
> them).
> 6. So I can eat out every day if I choose.
> 7. One word, big screen TV (ok, three words).
> 8. Because it's cool.
> 9. Because I like getting paged at 3 in the morning to save
> someone's butt
> and have them owe me BIG.
> 10. So I can live where I choose.
>
> RF
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> --
> Author: Orr, Steve
> INET: sorr_at_rightnow.com
>
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> Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
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Author: John Kanagaraj
  INET: john.kanagaraj_at_hds.com

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