Click here to monitor SSC
SQLServerCentral is supported by Red Gate Software Ltd.
 
Log in  ::  Register  ::  Not logged in
 
 


 
     
Recent Posts
   
Popular Topics
Home   
Search
    Members    Calendar    Who's On

Home » Article Discussions » Article Discussions by Author » Discuss content posted by Geoff Norman » How well do you really know your colleagues?
Add to briefcase
20 posts, Page 2 of 2
««12

How well do you really know your colleagues? Expand / Collapse
Rate Topic
Display Mode
Topic Options
Author
Message
Brandie Tarvin
Posted Thursday, July 08, 2010 7:56 AM


SSCertifiable

SSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiable

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Yesterday @ 4:45 AM
Points: 6,657, Visits: 5,680
Ah, my probationary period for one job started right in the middle of a major project. There'd been over a hundred scope changes the the project was due the end of my first month. The boss was head down in the project (no time to train me to help him) and gave me a data model / out-of-date data dictionary for the main app database.

So I spend the first week reading up on the database, then find myself receiving troubleshooting emails. So I ask my co-worker (the only other DBA team on the team) what the procedures are for fixing these problems and he freaks out. Literally at the top of his lungs, screaming so the entire office can hear him, that this is his job and he doesn't need *my* help doing it. My new boss talked to me later on, apologizing for the co-worker's behavior.

My advice to people, if you're going to accept employment, try to get hired during Crunch Time. There's nothing better about telling you what kind of people you're working with than seeing them under extreme pressure before you're committed.

Of course, I've been committed for years. Occasionally my handlers even let me out of my cage and pretty white jacket (it even ties in the back!) to speak at SQL Saturdays. @=)

Brandie Tarvin, MCITP Database Administrator, MCDBA, MCSA

Webpage: http://www.BrandieTarvin.net
LiveJournal Blog: http://brandietarvin.livejournal.com/
On LinkedIn!, Google+, and Twitter.

Freelance Writer: Shadowrun
Latchkeys: Nevermore, Latchkeys: The Bootleg War, and Latchkeys: Roscoes in the Night are now available on Nook and Kindle.
Post #949298
TravisDBA
Posted Thursday, July 08, 2010 10:11 AM


Ten Centuries

Ten CenturiesTen CenturiesTen CenturiesTen CenturiesTen CenturiesTen CenturiesTen CenturiesTen Centuries

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Thursday, May 09, 2013 9:23 AM
Points: 1,288, Visits: 2,996
So I spend the first week reading up on the database, then find myself receiving troubleshooting emails. So I ask my co-worker (the only other DBA team on the team) what the procedures are for fixing these problems and he freaks out. Literally at the top of his lungs, screaming so the entire office can hear him, that this is his job and he doesn't need *my* help doing it. My new boss talked to me later on, apologizing for the co-worker's behavior.


DBA's tend to be very territorial, fact of life. However that said, that still does not excuse anyone acting like that in the workplace. HR should have gotten involved. :)

"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ..."
Post #949418
PA1
Posted Thursday, July 08, 2010 10:42 AM
SSC Veteran

SSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC Veteran

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Monday, July 12, 2010 7:39 AM
Points: 225, Visits: 70
Travis is right on with what I see in my place of employment, too. It saddens me that the people who get promoted almost never seem to deserve it, and worse - they will take credit for your work in a heartbeat and never even acknowledge you.
Post #949447
Brandie Tarvin
Posted Thursday, July 08, 2010 11:09 AM


SSCertifiable

SSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiableSSCertifiable

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Yesterday @ 4:45 AM
Points: 6,657, Visits: 5,680
TravisDBA (7/8/2010)
So I spend the first week reading up on the database, then find myself receiving troubleshooting emails. So I ask my co-worker (the only other DBA team on the team) what the procedures are for fixing these problems and he freaks out. Literally at the top of his lungs, screaming so the entire office can hear him, that this is his job and he doesn't need *my* help doing it. My new boss talked to me later on, apologizing for the co-worker's behavior.


DBA's tend to be very territorial, fact of life. However that said, that still does not excuse anyone acting like that in the workplace. HR should have gotten involved. :)


HR didn't have to get involved. He was a contractor. @=)

Oddly enough, I haven't met very many DBAs who are territorial. Most of the ones I know are good with sharing duties, solutions, etc. I hear more stories about territorial developers and server admin that I've heard about DBAs, in fact.

Brandie Tarvin, MCITP Database Administrator, MCDBA, MCSA

Webpage: http://www.BrandieTarvin.net
LiveJournal Blog: http://brandietarvin.livejournal.com/
On LinkedIn!, Google+, and Twitter.

Freelance Writer: Shadowrun
Latchkeys: Nevermore, Latchkeys: The Bootleg War, and Latchkeys: Roscoes in the Night are now available on Nook and Kindle.
Post #949460
James Stover
Posted Thursday, July 08, 2010 5:48 PM
SSC Veteran

SSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC Veteran

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 10:37 AM
Points: 263, Visits: 859
There's a great line spoken by John Milton (played by Al Pacino) in the movie "The Devil's Advocate":

"Pressure. Changes everything. Some people, you squeeze them, they focus. Some people fold."

The movie is from 1997 and that line has stuck with me ever since. I say it to myself when I start to feel the pressure. I want to focus, not fold.


James Stover, McDBA
Post #949671
SQLRNNR
Posted Thursday, July 08, 2010 6:37 PM


SSCoach

SSCoachSSCoachSSCoachSSCoachSSCoachSSCoachSSCoachSSCoachSSCoachSSCoachSSCoach

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Monday, May 20, 2013 1:07 PM
Points: 18,733, Visits: 12,332
Nice article. I agree that a lot can be learned from people during crunch time. However, you can learn a lot from them also when there is nothing going on. What about the DBA that has no projects and the servers seem to be running fine? What does that DBA do when he has a lot of free time?


Jason AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
I have given a name to my pain...
MCM SQL Server 2008

SQL RNNR

Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw
Posting Data Etiquette - Jeff Moden
Hidden RBAR - Jeff Moden
VLFs and the Tran Log - Kimberly Tripp
Post #949673
hila
Posted Thursday, July 08, 2010 8:09 PM
SSC Rookie

SSC RookieSSC RookieSSC RookieSSC RookieSSC RookieSSC RookieSSC RookieSSC Rookie

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Tuesday, May 01, 2012 7:43 PM
Points: 25, Visits: 75
How well do you know your colleagues in a real disaster time? Well, in the army that's a very good question. who will do run forward and who will panic? Actually, there are two parameters: the first is the unknown. There is no way to really tell who will react how. That's a question that army officers deal with and they haven't figured out a way.
The second is: when people go through several "disaster" options, when people do the drill (disaster recovery for example) then they know what to do. It's that simple.
So you shouldn't ask yourself "how well do you know your colleagues?". You should ask yourself "what do I want my colleagues to know?"

Personally, when I fell I asked for a certain colleagues. She was as resourceful as I thought she would be.

How to survive air crushes
[/url]
You can't predict a solider under fire:[url=http://www.haaretz.com/news/study-soldiers-performance-in-combat-not-related-to-profile-assessments-1.235777]
Post #949690
mtucker-732014
Posted Thursday, July 08, 2010 10:44 PM
SSC Journeyman

SSC JourneymanSSC JourneymanSSC JourneymanSSC JourneymanSSC JourneymanSSC JourneymanSSC JourneymanSSC Journeyman

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Sunday, May 19, 2013 5:07 PM
Points: 90, Visits: 282
Im surprised no one has yet mentioned the Dunning Kruger effect. To save you the trouble here is an excerpt from wikipedia:

"The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which an unskilled person makes poor decisions and reaches erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to realize their mistakes.[1] The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to the perverse situation in which less competent people rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence: because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding"

You cant judge a person's competence from their level of confidence.

As for how people react under pressure, this is reasonably stable personality trait. Stoic people tend to be stoic most of the time, highly reactive people tend to be highly reactive. Of course even the coolest person can blow up if she has had a tough week, no sleep, and too many fools to deal with.
Post #949721
TravisDBA
Posted Friday, July 09, 2010 7:07 AM


Ten Centuries

Ten CenturiesTen CenturiesTen CenturiesTen CenturiesTen CenturiesTen CenturiesTen CenturiesTen Centuries

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Thursday, May 09, 2013 9:23 AM
Points: 1,288, Visits: 2,996
You cant judge a person's competence from their level of confidence.


True, but in many jobs, particularly with IT managers, this tends to be more becauue of the Peter Principle than the Dunning-Kruger effect.

"The Peter Principle is the principle that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." It was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle, a humorous treatise which also introduced the "salutary science of Hierarchiology", "inadvertently founded" by Peter. It holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. This principle can be modeled and has theoretical validity. Peter's Corollary states that "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties" and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence".

"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ..."
Post #949935
sjsubscribe
Posted Friday, July 09, 2010 11:48 AM
SSC Veteran

SSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC VeteranSSC Veteran

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Thursday, December 20, 2012 1:03 PM
Points: 265, Visits: 589
How someone reacts outside their "comfort" zone is a matter of great unknown. Even individuals cannot predict how they would react at the time or cope in the aftermath. The US Army developed many testing tools to recognize exceptional individuals (both good and bad kind), but after decades of trying out, the matter is still not settled. As I recall, the best one can hope for is trying to understand oneself first.
Post #950143
« Prev Topic | Next Topic »

Add to briefcase
20 posts, Page 2 of 2
««12

Permissions Expand / Collapse

 
 
Copyright © 2002-2013 Simple Talk Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy. Terms of Use. Report Abuse.