Nicholas Cain (4/17/2009)
Here's my personal favourite to spring:It's 3pm on a Friday, your production OLTP environment is down, every hour down costs the company one million dollars. People are phoning constantly, folks are rushing the hallways, running into your work area and freaking out wanting to know what you are doing, and why it's not fixed yet.
What do you do?
That separates the men from the boys (or women from the girls)
Step 0: Ignore panicked people, rely on super-geek-introversion to do this effortlessly.
Step 1: Ignore any suggested diagnosis that was given in the initial report and focus on reported symptoms only. Figure out WHICH component of the OLTP system is ACTUALLY down, which may not be the piece that appears to be down.
Step 2: Once the faulty component is found (may or may not be the database), get the RIGHT PERSON to work on it.
If you get the right person to work on the right component, that's half the battle.