Re: you ass

Nuno,

Thank you for the kind words. As I say, I don't think I am very nasty to many people; if anything, I generally save that for the people being nasty to others.

I've been doing this for 16 years. I learned Oracle when someone dumped about 8 books on my work area in a secured laboratory at Bell Labs and then told me "all that stuff you wrote in Informix has to be redone in Oracle". The Lord had to have been watching all this because otherwise there would have been a headline "Director at Bell Laboratories savagely murdered". (I had spent more than 4 months designing, DBAing, and programming a complex and critical app in Informix. Nobody ever told me it was to be in Oracle. I never used Oracle. I couldn't spell Oracle. But I know 4 months work down the toilet when I see it.)

To paraphrase the old, old margarine commercial, "It's not NICE to fool Mother Nature!" (and all hell breaks lose), it also isn't nice to tell someone that basically all that work excepting logical data structures are toast; even the SQL didn't work to create the tables and had to be rewritten.

Anyhow, I've spent many years, starting at the Labs, teaching others Oracle, or helping them with it; junior DBA's, people that are insane enough to want to be DBA's (vividly remember one late night when a good friend said "Scott, can you lay out a training program for me so I can learn to be a DBA when you get the chance?". to which I said, (XXXX), you're married, you have children. When you come home, they all recognize the man walking in the door and aren't calling 911, pressing the ADT panic alarm button, or spraying this strange intruder with MACE. Are you INSANE? I can't even have a plastic philodendron at home because it would die of neglect!!", etc. Despite my better judgment, I did lay out a curriculum with Oracle Education classroom training, CBT, and interleaved it with OJT (that is not easy by the way to figure out, and mesh with the Gantt charts so his availability is managed).

The point is, from many corporations and the Department of Defense, if you can believe this, the most frequent comment I get is, "You are a really good teacher. You are so patient. I don't know how you do it." ("Dey don't know mee vewwy well, doo dey?" as Tweety Bird or Bugs Bunny would say.)

But some people here take it as given that they're entitled to free advice from people that get paid (sometimes quite a lot) for what they know and can do, compound this presumption by not even making much effort to write a question that can be understood, and finally, have a huge hissy fit, when someone hitting the question first discovers it's total garbage, after turning it around sideways, looking on the other side of the page, and still can't make heads or tails of it. And these are the ones written employing a sufficient number of words in English to even begin that task.

And so, with a migraine or whatever, or maybe being up for 48 hours straight, or something, after trying still to help someone and finally blowing our stack, suddenly we are the Antichrist. Well tough. The last person with infinite sympathy and compassion paid dearly for it a few thousand years ago; the rest of us aren't perfect.

It's no different than (another analogy) an email or phone call, "It's dark. Please help.".

Is it nighttime?
Do you have a source of lighting and if so what sort? If it operates by combustion do you have a means of igniting it? If so, does it have sufficient fuel to function? Are you in an explosive atmosphere (flour or coal dust, hydrogen, methane, propane, cyclopropane, acetylene,...)?
Have you lost main power?
...
to "Have you opened the window shades and determined if the sun is up or down?" and, oh, just as an additional diagnostic question, "Do you have any vision impairment that might cause you to perceive it as dark, and if so, do you have means such as a photometer or other methods to determine whether it is, in fact, dark due to lack of light, or because you cannot make use of it? Have you asked any coworkers if they too perceive it as being dark?"

I will not further belabor the point, but it's a lot like a phone call: "Oracle doesn't work" that turns out to be the network cable isn't plugged into the network adapter card, or they don't even have one.

RSH. "Nuno Souto" <nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam> wrote in message news:3cca1517$0$15478$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au...
> In article <Wdky8.52184$QC1.3770025_at_bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
> you said (and I quote):
>
>
> > I am still waiting for a question like:
> > snip
>
>
> That one deserves framing! Thanks. :)
>
>
> >
> > I am not condoning chewing innocent people up into pieces and spitting
them
> > up; but I think nearly everyone must admit there is a differenve between
> > "what type of screwdriver should I use on a worn bronze slotted wood
screw",
> > and, "Can someone explain what wood is, build my house, and paint and
> > furnish it, do the wiring, the roofing, arrange the permits"?
>
>
> Absolutely. What new people have to realize is that most of the folks
> who hang around here answering questions have done so for YEARS.
> Voluntarily. Without even a vague semblance of recognition from Oracle
> or any other "official" organization or group. In fact, quite the
> opposite has happened. It's only natural that every once in a while we
> see a "boiled top". And quite frankly: anyone in the Usenet that hasn't
> yet developed a thick skin is in for a BIG surprise.
>
>
> > > manner we wish, because we want to. Any time you, or Larry want to
write
> > me a
> > > check at my normal billing rate I'll be glad to behave like a trained
> > monkey at
> > > 1-800-SUP-PORT.
>
>
> Precisely.
>
>
> > >
> > > Until then perhaps people who use the internet will learn a bit of
common
> > > courtesy. You don't walk into a church and start selling tuperware.
You
> > don't
> > > post tests in a forum like this ... you do it at alt.test. And if your
> > skin is
> > > so thin and you are so easily upset by someone saying RTFM to you that
you
> > have
> > > to run for your Prozac ... likely you have other problems as well.
>
>
> Hehehe! Took the words off my mouth. Try a sabbatical in one of the
> soc.culture.* or one of the many *.politics Usenet groups and they'll
> learn fast to get a thick skin. Then they can come back and not feel
> offended.
>
>
> > >
> > > Once again, for the record, I will repeat ... you are correct that we
> > could be
> > > kinder and gentler. And I, for one, will try. I'll put happyface
emoticons
> > like
> > > ;-) after all of my sarcastic remarks. And write RTM rather than RTFM
so
> > as not
> > > to offend gentler souls.
>
>
> I won't. I reckon RTFM carries the message in a much more efficient and
> clear manner. Agree with the thingies, though. :-D
>
>
> --
> Cheers
> Nuno Souto
> nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam
Received on Sat Apr 27 2002 - 15:48:54 CDT