Re: Realistic administration duties

On Sun, 06 Aug 2000 16:34:54 GMT, argosy22_at_my-deja.com wrote:

>
>I was hired six months ago as an Oracle DBA. They
>then said, oh, you get to do the Unix admin too.

Yikes! Sucked in...

>
>We have a very complex and unstable application
>on the web. What I actually spend most of my
>time doing is administering this awful application.
>There are 14 different pieces of software involved
>in this one app! They have plans to make it
>even more complex!
>
>As a result, the real DBA, and Unix admin duties,
>such as backups (!!!!) are not being tended to,
>or even looked at properly.
>

Sounds like you need a DETAILED summary of where you are spending your time. Then pass it on WEEKLY to the boss. That way you're covered when the proverbial hits the fan (and it will, seen it happen again and again!).

Otherwise, at the first DBA problem you haven't covered, I'll bet you the app people will blame you for everything they should have done and what you should have done but didn't have time to.

>in paper writing!) Senior developers, operations, or
>managers administered the application.

And so they should! Sounds like in your site someone is resting instead of working. Let me guess: the person that should be the app "manager" is related or a good friend of the IT boss?

>
>However, all this has been thrown at me. I don't have time
>to read and research properly all the issues that I need
>to deal with. (Thanks to all of you for answering
>my postings.) It really burns me out.
>

And when they find out you're burned out, they'll toss you out for the first "ex-uni smart-ass" sucker they can find. Typical. Be assured: there is no "golden Rolex" at the end of this attitude. About time this sort of crap stopped!

Fill in your resume and look for something else, that is the sort of job you do NOT want to keep. Trust me, been there done that many times, for too long. NOT ONE of your senior management mob will thank you for all the effort you're putting in! Quite the opposite: they'll blame you for all the problems.

>
>- do you know in depth all the other development tools,
>Java, ColdFusion, Perl, HTML, the awful workflow system that
>you bought, etc.?

Javascript (rusty), Perl, ksh, html, C, UNIX, comms, etc.etc. But I don't want to be a jack-of-all-trades. It's more so that I can understand what's going on than to be all things at the same time. Helps also when you have to deal with a smart-ass UNIX SA who thinks he/she can snow-job you...

HTH PS: Did I sound overly pessimistic? Good! Take action NOW. You'll thank me later...

Cheers
Nuno Souto
nsouto_at_nsw.bigpond.net.au.nospam
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/the_Den/index.html Received on Mon Aug 07 2000 - 00:00:00 CDT