Re: DBA tasklist

HEY I was trying to be serious!!

The suggestion to check with all the developers and your DBAs every day is something I neglected but terribly important. Also, I used to have a meeting every Wednesday at noon with the senior developers, the Operations DBA, and we'd go over outstanding lists of peeves, like tables and such in production or development that nobody knew what they were there for, etc.

Many shops have artificial and detrimental walls between Development / Research and Operations-- that is a bad thing.

So our Wednesday lunch included the Ops DBA, the senior SA, from operations, myself as SrDBA/Architect, and the senior Oracle developers, plus anyone else from any group either "Upstairs" or "Downstairs" (Dev/Research & Ops, respectively) that had any questions or gripes.

As far as visiting everyone, well that used to be called MBWA (Managing by Walking Around) and it is a highly advisable practice, as long as you do not make a pest of yourself.

I was quite serious about homememade goodies; people instinctively respond to that. It's very easy to pick up a box of donuts on the way to work, it's something else entirely to surprise your team with a catered lunch that you made yourself. Those are good things to do especially when morale is low. You do have to be a reasonably good cook, of course. Even if you aren't, it shows you care at a visceral level.

A hint about that, if morale is really low, do special things as a surprise and have no pattern about it. Pick a random Tuesday or some other day and surprise them with the unexpected and your kindness in taking the time and trouble. Except for our Wednesdays, anything else was totally extemporaneous and a secret except from our district secretary, a very loyal conspirator for the Resistance. Not everyone could cover up the fact that sourdough bread dough was having its first and second risings in her office. Let alone figure out a way to keep anyone from going to lunch without them knowing exactly why that was.

But she managed it, and at 1200 sharp, she met me outside the Labs building to help me carry stuff upstairs; a conference table with a tablecloth was set out in a main hallway, and we had my homemade sourdough bread (fresh from the oven of the Pizza place nearby; build connections- a 2 buck tip and they will bake for you), shrimp cocktail, Brie and Camembert, aged Gouda, a platter of Emmenthaler Swiss, Black Forest Ham, sliced roast turkey, sliced rare roast beef; pasta and potato salad; two or three mustards, mayo, butter; a salad of those foofoo greens and a homemade vinaigrette; coffee brewed from freshly ground gourmet beans, a Chocolate Decadence cake made by the pastry chef at the Four Seasons in New York, a cheesecake either made by him or me, and every last little detail, down PERFECT.

We had it set up in 10 minutes, anyone going by or being nosy was told to bug off. And then she went round and told the various districts, directors, managers, and everyone there was a little surprise in the hall outside her office.

Morale: 5% ---> 120%

Moral: When people are down, show you care and appreciate their work, and do the unexpected.

RSH.
"Niall Litchfield" <niall.litchfield_at_btinternet.com> wrote in message news:a68ucf$ko1$1_at_paris.btinternet.com...
> "RSH" <RSH_Oracle_at_worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:K3Sh8.20500$106.1668266_at_bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> > Check who -u and see how many actual UNIX connections are on and which
are
> > active and who they are. A dot means they are current; if that is one of
> > your tedious and troublesome developers, make sure he/she/it hasn't
blown
> > out /tmp or /usr/tmp by spooling a SQLPLUS query, say :
> >
> > SELECT * from NAMES_OF_ALL_LIVING_BEINGS_ON_EARTH
> >
> > which thus can can cause interdepartmental chaos when all of a sudden
none
> > of the UNIX side developers can invoke 'vi'.
>
> surely that should read
>
> SELECT sysdate
> from
> NAMES_OF_ALL_LIVING_BEINGS_ON_EARTH,
> GPS_LOCATION_OF_ALL_WOMEN_NAMED_MARIA
> where
> inside_leg_measurement is in(select attractive_legs from
> sterotypical_male_db)
> and 'POPE'='catholic';
>
>
> --
> Niall Litchfield
> Oracle DBA
> Audit Commission UK
>
>
>
>
Received on Fri Mar 08 2002 - 17:05:32 CST