Last week I published this post about something a colleague noticed when playing around with a SQL Server instance running on Linux. Fairly innocuous and I was chuffed when I saw that the guys over at BrentOzar.com had linked to it in their weekly newsletter.

As the day wore on, the post attracted a couple of *ahem* interesting comments about how Linux works. A couple were helpful and a couple were, well not so helpful.

I’m not going into the overall tone of the comments as William Durkin (b|t) pretty but sums it up here but it did remind me of something I used to think when I first started out learning my trade as a SQL Server DBA.

I firmly believe that there are two types of IT worker, which become apparent when they/we are asked for help. One will respond along the lines of “I can’t possibly explain to you now, it’s rather complicated” whereas the second group will say something like “Ah it’s not too hard. Here, let me show you”.

I’ve always tried to be of the latter type, in fact it’s why I started writing this blog. I admit there have been times when I’ve been busy that I haven’t been able to show a colleague what they were asking about, but I’ve always tried to make that up as soon as I possibly could.

My advice? Drop the ones that you meet who fall into the first group and cultivate relationships with members of the second. The only other thing to think about is, which group do you fall into?

Thanks for reading!