RE: Definition of Top Class DBA

From: Herring, David <HerringD_at_DNB.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 17:52:21 -0500
Message-ID: <AD8FE6616C097545A4C9A8B0792909AC3C95CD9E43_at_DNBEXCH01.dnbint.net>

I agree with Seth on this big time! Covering up a screwup takes so much wasted energy as you either have make up a lie or spend all sorts of effort to cover it up. That's WAY too complex for me. I'd rather fess up and be done with it.

About 5 yrs ago while supporting a client I made a change in prod, during the day, without proper permission. The intention was good (we were in a near-critical situation) but as luck would have it the change hit a bug in 10.2 and forced us to eventually rebuild our standby. First thing I did was make sure everyone was aware that I did it and didn't have the proper approval. Why? I'd like to say that I'm such a valiant person but it was a lot more simple to just admit it and avoid all sorts of investigation and finger pointing. It's too hard to remember what you have covered up in the past - just point at me and be done with it, then on to fixing the problem. BTW, last year I accepted an offer from this client.

An important point in asking questions like what Seth is getting at is making sure you don't lead the person to what you're looking for. Ask as general questions as possible on the fallout to see how the person reacted and what they did. Some people are very proud of things "they got away with".

Dave Herring

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Seth Miller Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2014 11:16 AM To: oracledbaquestions_at_gmail.com
Cc: ORACLE-L
Subject: Re: Definition of Top Class DBA

Really great points here. I'll add another one that is very important but nothing to do with knowledge.

Every one of us reading these emails has done something to disrupt business; dropped a production table, compressed a live data file, rm -rf on the wrong directory (yes I've done all of these). This is part of the learning process and inherent in the nature of what we do. The important part comes afterward.

The professional owns up to their mistakes, regardless of the consequences or even if the problem can't be traced back to them. It only takes one time of someone blaming a colleague, another group or just outright lying about an incident to make that person unreliable and untrustworthy.

There may be blowback at the beginning but people will respect someone who takes the more difficult path. Fortunately, this is the exception so those that do the right thing and own up to their mistakes stand out among their peers.

Seth Miller

On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Dba DBA <oracledbaquestions_at_gmail.com> wrote: People often leave out something important... personality, willingness to share information, being articulate, and learning more than just the DB. 

I have worked with some excellent DBAs who I didn't want to even talk to. They cause drama and send out these emails with massive lists of people on it whenever they decide for someone reason they don't like anything. Cause drama. (its not just DBAs that do this). Really good people don't cause unnecessary drama. Not that many people do this... however, there is a real popular fantasy writer who put it like this. Patrick Rothfuss gets occasional hate mail from fans because he is a slow writer. Its not very often. He says its like having a turd in your rice crispies. You can't exactly eat around the turd. 

Willingness to share info: Sending people a link to the doc and saying RTFM is not real helpful. For people who are not experts reading the docs is tough. When I need to look at something new I actually look for blog entries first because someone else dissected the blogs. If people didn't do that, there would be no point in good DBAs writing these blogs... 

More than Just the DB: if its all the DB, then you don't know that much. One thing I have seen from Oak Table members is they know alot about unix and operating systems. Quite a few of them have clearly read algorithm books. I have read a few myself. I know some C (not alot) from school. I find it helpful. I also try to listen to the developers and sometimes I read their code. If you just know the DB, then developers will often blow you off, but if you can speak their language they are more responsive. I see alot of that from Oak Table members.

Articulate: It takes a lot of practice to explain technical issues to people who don't know it as well as you or don't know your discipline. If you are very good you can explain things without using oracle jargon and simplify. It takes alot of practice to do this... Again, I point to the Oracle blogs. Jonathan Lewis and others are very good at this. 

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