Many years ago I got a summer job waiting tables. The first day I arrived, ready to begin training, two people called in sick. I was thrown into the job, needing to quickly learn the menu and routines to get people their food. The next year I got a different job bartending, and found myself in almost the same situation. No one to train me, work needed to get done, and I had to fumble around learning as I went. In both cases I did well, and I had good managers who both understood I'd make mistakes and appreciated that I learned quickly. I could easily have had bad managers that assumed any problems were failures on my part and would have let me go, even when they hadn't been able to train me.

It's an old saying that sometimes when you find yourself getting out of one problem, you fall into another. That's what happened when I traded one problem, unemployment, for another, getting up to speed in a new job on my own. It's what happens to many DBAs, as evidenced in this Dilbert comic strip. In many of the companies I've worked for or consulted in, I've seen a number of system administrators thrown into the DBA role, and asked to manage SQL Server instances, with little to no training.

SQL Server is an amazing platform, and it can often run itself for a long time without anyone actively managing the system. However there comes a time when things start to break down, and often break down quickly. There's any number of consultants making a good living cleaning up messes from "DBAs" or developers who are in charge of SQL Server instances without really understanding what they should be doing.

Managers get complacent, especially when systems seem to be running fine. They don't think their administrators need any training or help. While I try my best to help educate administrators with lots of basic content, there's lots of work to be done. When you see good basic articles, or fundamentals things administrators should know, pass them along. It's up to most of us to learn on our own, and with a little suggestion and prodding, many of us will learn more.

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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