Professional-Development

Matt (blog | twitter) is preparing for his first SQL Saturday presentation next weekend in Washington, DC. He’s asked:

I wanted to get an idea of some good, bad, and surprise experiences that people had at everything from a SQL Server User Group meeting to PASS Summit. Things you found out right before, during or even after that you were glad you did or wish you did.

Random Thoughts

SQL Saturdays are similar to PASS Summit, but much smaller in scope and budget. Most SQL Saturdays have a twitter hashtag; follow it before the event so you can get an idea of who’s attending and make plans to meet some of those people.

Malathi Mahadevan (blog|twitter) is hosting this month’s T-SQL Tuesday, a monthly blog party for the SQL Server community.

Malathi has asked us to:

Pick one thing you want to learn that is not SQL Server. Write down ways and means to learn it and add it as another skill to your resume. If you are already learning it or know it – explain how you got there and how it has helped you. Your experience may help many others looking for guidance on this.

On the eve of this year’s PASS Summit, I find myself reflecting on my first Summit in 2012. My employer was generous enough to pay for not only Summit itself, but a pre-con session on Tuesday as well.

I was a developer with an interest in SQL Server and PowerShell at the time, not a DBA. Becoming a DBA wasn’t on my radar yet. Regardless, I used the opportunity to attend a full-day class on managing SQL Server with PowerShell, taught by Allen White (blog | twitter). One of the big focal points of the day was the SQL Server Management Objects, aka SMO.

A few weeks ago, I teased good news.

just got some good news. can’t wait to share it

• Tweet by me at Fri Jul 20 16:42:28 +0000 2018

One person hypothesized that I’m joining Microsoft (it seems to be the thing to do lately) and another jumped to the conclusion that I must be pregnant. Both creative responses, but not quite correct.

I’ll be at PASS Summit 2018!

So much to do!

This week, I had the opportunity to be the moderator for Joseph Barth’s (blog|twitter) 24 Hours of PASS Summit Preview session about Azure Data Factory V2. It was fun, easy, and I encourage you to sign up to do the same!

Throughout the year, PASS hosts a number of online learning events. 24 Hours of PASS and virtual chapter webinars being the most common/visible. And in each session, the presenter needs a little help managing questions and watching the clock so they can focus on delivering their great content. It’s pretty easy. You just:

I really enjoy my job. I became a full-time production DBA about 14 months ago and it has been an overwhelmingly positive move. I work for a good company and with a terrific group of people. Many days, I have to force myself to leave the office because I was so engrossed in a task and just didn’t want to set it aside.

But there’s something that not everyone might consider before taking on this job. If you have a partner, children, or both, taking a job as a production DBA is really a family decision.

This tweet showed up in the dbatools Slack channel Friday afternoon.

My first thought was “huh? John (twitter) hadn’t kicked code in previously? I thought he had.” Once I was over that, I reflected a bit on what John wrote here, and was reminded of how I felt when I started helping out with dbatools.

It’s similar to Impostor Syndrome - I felt like I wasn’t doing much, small things here and there, in large part “just” documentation cleanup. The feeling that I was just throwing changes into the codebase just for the sake of making changes. It took me a couple of months and talking to several people before I understood that what I was doing was useful to someone other than myself and internalized what I was hearing.

Kevin Hill mentioned this idea/series on a SQL community slack channel back in April and I thought it would be a good way to get back to blogging. The timing worked out well as I had just started a new job, my first with the official title of “SQL Server DBA.” So how’d I get here?

School

In college, I took a single database course. I’d messed around with Microsoft Access a bit, but wanted to get a better handle on what I was doing. The course was not at all what I was expecting. I passed and did OK, but I didn’t completely grasp the material. The class was mostly deep RDBMS theory including “how do we store this on disk” - I wrote minimal amounts of SQL in this course because it wasn’t required.

Spend any time around a 4 year old, and you will inevitably find yourself involved in a conversation which evolves into this:

• Please do this thing
• Why?
• Reasonable answer
• Why?
• Restatement of reasonable answer
• Why?
• Shorter, more frustrated restatement of reasonable answer
• Why?
• Because that’s what has to be done
• Why?
• Because
• Why?
• I give up. Go ask your other parent

It’s a simple, but powerful and important question. The trouble is that when it’s a 4 year old asking it, in a lot of cases they can’t understand the answer. More often, they aren’t interested in understanding it.

PASS Summit is nearly upon us. I’m excited to be attending my second Summit in Seattle and cannot wait to get there to see everyone. With one Summit and a few SQL Saturdays under my belt I’ve got a laundry list of things and people I can’t miss, and very little time to pack it all into.

Let’s Meet!

The greatest part of Summit (and SQL Saturday) for me is meeting people and exchanging ideas. If you haven’t experienced it, #SQLFamily is amazing. When I reached the convention center two years ago, the first feeling that hit me was “I finally found my people!” We’re all friendly, I swear. Just say “hi, I’m .”  I guarantee you will find people who are into the same stuff you’re into, and I’m not talking just talking about SQL Server. Music, dance, outdoor activities, all kinds of stuff. We have a common thing that brought us together, but that’s not what keeps us together. It is an amazing community and it just keeps getting better. On Sunday, as you’re decompressing from the event and travel, you will miss these people who you didn’t even know a week before.