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Contracting for Work

Throughout my career, I've primarily been a full time employee for an organization. I have worked for myself, as well as for consulting companies. For the latter, I've been an employee as well as a contract worker. There's a bit of difference between those, at least in the US, and it isn't always easy to understand what that means for an individual.

I thought about my various experiences while reading about Jon Shaulis' T-SQL Tuesday post recently on changing his mind about contracting. He also has a section on T-SQL (bonus points for Jon), but the post is mostly about contracting and employment. Jon talks about some of the differences he's seen between working for someone as a contractor and as an employee. His experiences are similar to mine, but I certainly wish I'd had a good list of these things when considering job offers in my 20s.

There are lots of people in our #sqlfamily that have started consulting businesses, wanting to work for themselves and make more money. You can read various accounts of how well this works, but it certainly isn't as smooth for everyone as it might seem. I like reading Brent Ozar's yearly evaluations, and I've been following Eugene Meidinger's journey as well. These aren't about contracting too much, but they do give you an idea of what it's  like to operate your own business, and as a contractor, you are your own business, though you have a little less of the "business" stuff to do since someone does the admin, selling, and marketing and just tells you what to do.

I actually encourage everyone to consider themselves and contractor and don't get too complacent with your job as an employee. You never know when you situation will change, and it's good to be prepared. It might not even be you, as your spouse or partner might force you to make a change.

Or your employer might.

Just like a contractor might have one client for 10 years, I think it's prudent to keep an eye on the environment and be prepared to find another client if some unforeseen event occurs. The days of single company employment for life are over for most of us. I have the best job, but I keep an eye on the market. One never knows when things might change for them.

Deciding how to structure your employment is a decision each of us should make, but do so with an open mind and some understanding of the changes for work, benefits, savings, medical coverage, and more. While Jon has a good list, I'd love to see more people build and publish a structured checklist in terms of decisions and costs, even sample ones. This can help others get an idea of what the impact might be on their life when making a decision like this.

No matter whether you choose to work for an organization or as a contractor, it's not a final decision. You can change your mind anytime, though do so with some planning and consideration of the impact on you and your family. It's not an easy decision, but you should be comfortable with your choice when you finally do make it.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

 
 Featured Contents

Transaction Isolation Levels

aveek22 from SQLServerCentral

Introduction While working with SQL databases, we ...

Using the SQL Compare command line with Argfiles

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Phil Factor demonstrates how using XML argfiles to pass parameters to SQL Compare cuts out a lot of the tedious scripting involved in modifying a database schema comparison and deployment process, as required for each target database.

Establishing a DevOps Organisation

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DevOps might sound intimidating if your organisation has not yet begun on its DevOps journey. In this article, Rahul Varshneya explains some of the benefits and reviews the stages all DevOps organisations go through to achieve it.

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Availability Groups and Redo Latency, Data Committed on a Primary isn’t Visible on a Synchronous Secondary

david.fowler 42596 from SQL Undercover

If you’re running availability groups it may seem like a great idea to offload your read only reporting workloads to a secondary. There are a couple of ways that...

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - How a new custom PowerPoint template is helping us to be more effective presenters

Meagan Longoria from Data Savvy

DCAC recently had a custom PowerPoint template built for us. We use PowerPoint for teaching technical concepts, delivering sales and marketing presentations, and more. One thing I love about...

 

 Question of the Day

Today's question (by Thomas Franz):

 

Database containment and collation

Lets start with a simple, new database with Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS as collation:
USE [master]
go
CREATE DATABASE [test_cont]
CONTAINMENT = NONE
ON PRIMARY 
( NAME = N'test_cont', FILENAME = N'c:temptest_cont.mdf' , SIZE = 8192KB , FILEGROWTH = 65536KB )
LOG ON 
( NAME = N'test_cont_log', FILENAME = N'c:temptest_cont_log.ldf' , SIZE = 8192KB , FILEGROWTH = 65536KB )
GO
ALTER DATABASE [test_cont] COLLATE Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS
When we run the following query, we see, that the collation of the name column in the view sys.objects is Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS (as expected) and Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS_WS for type / type_desc.
USE test_cont
GO
SELECT c.name, c.collation_name
FROM sys.all_objects AS ao
INNER JOIN sys.all_columns AS c
ON c.object_id = ao.object_id -- will be -385 per default for sys.objects
WHERE ao.name = 'objects'
AND ao.schema_id = SCHEMA_ID('sys')
AND c.collation_name IS NOT NULL;
GO
Now we change the database to partially containment (allowing us to create user, that exists only in this database but not as login on the server level):
-- don't do it on production without exactly knowing, what you do!!!
EXEC sys.sp_configure @configname = 'contained database authentication', @configvalue = 1; 
RECONFIGURE

ALTER DATABASE [test_cont] SET CONTAINMENT = NONE WITH NO_WAIT
Question: What happens, when we execute this code?
USE test_cont
GO
SELECT c.name, c.collation_name
FROM sys.all_objects AS ao
INNER JOIN sys.all_columns AS c
ON c.object_id = ao.object_id -- will be -385 per default for sys.objects
WHERE ao.name = 'objects'
AND ao.schema_id = SCHEMA_ID('sys')
AND c.collation_name IS NOT NULL;
GO
PS: tested on SQL 2016 SP2 Enterprise

Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

 

 

 Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

Ordering by Alias

I have a table with some order data that I need to build a query for. I gave a sample data set that looks like this:

 INSERT dbo.SalesHeader
 ( OrderKey, CustomerID, ShipTo, OrderDate, OrderTotal, StatusKey)
 VALUES
 ( 1, 1, 'Office', '2017-09-01', 500, 0 ),
 ( 2, 1, 'Home',   '2016-07-05', 500, 0 ),
 ( 3, 2, 'Office', '2018-11-06', 500, 0 ),
 ( 4, 3, 'Office', '2019-04-07', 500, 0 ),
 ( 5, 3, 'Office', '2018-06-08', 500, 0 ),
 ( 6, 3, 'Office', '2015-02-09', 500, 0 ),
 ( 7, 4, 'Home',   '2014-12-11', 500, 0 )
GO

I query this table like this to test things:

SELECT
          OrderKey,
          CustomerID,
          OrderDate = CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), sh.OrderDate, 101),
          sh.OrderTotal
 FROM     dbo.SalesHeader AS sh
 ORDER BY OrderDate;

Which OrderKey is returned first?

Answer: 6

Explanation: Orderkey 6 is returned first as the conversion to varchar() will format this in a dd/mm/yyyy format. The ORDER BY clause will refer to the formatted data, not the column value, as it is not qualified. Ref:

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

 

 

 

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.


SQL Server 2017 - Administration
Managing Mirroring failover in a WSFC cluster - Hi all, hope you can help. I'm not a DBA so have been googling as I go, so forgive my idiocy: I've got a SQL server standard instance with a number of databases. The setup is as follows: Servers 1 and 2 are in a SQL cluster with shared storage. Server 3 is a standalone […]
SQL profiler - Is SQL profile being deprecated and extended events should be used instead?   Also, has anyone heard that there is more of a concern around Statistics rather than fragmentation ?
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SQL Server 2017 - Development
Most frequently used text in column - I would like to update a field (yearclass) for each row with the most common text in payclass for each grower, block, section and year combination. In the case where there are equal amounts of payclass, weight should be used to determine yearclass. Highest sum of weight wins. I have tried many queries of which […]
Insert into OPENDATASOURCE with Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.16.0 provider - failed - Hi all, we export data into Excel file from SQL Server 2017 with a simple command (a part of a stored procedure): The command looks like: INSERT INTO OPENDATASOURCE('Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.16.0', 'Excel8.0;HDR=YES;IMEX=1;Database=\\some_folder\excel1.xls')...Sheet1     SELECT * FROM table1 It works fine. But only if just one export is processing at the same time. If more exports are […]
Removing a double space in the middle of a name - Suppose I had a list of names and one of the names was Kathy  Harrison.  Notice the double space after the first name.  In Excel there is a function called TRIM which could remove extraneous spaces.  I am trying to find something like that in SQL.  As far as I know, in SQL, TRIM is […]
SQL Server 2016 - Administration
SQL Server security after deleting AD group - I currently have a scenario where an AD group that was defined as a SQL login with particular permissions got deleted from AD but not from SQL. So: domaina\groupb - no longer exists as an AD group but still exists as a SQL login It seems that members of the deleted group still have SQL […]
Very large t-log with backups - I have a database that's 125GB, but the t-log is 190GB.  I do full backups each day and t-log backups every 15 minutes.  I've verified the log backups have been successful for the past week.  Generally when I see a large log like this it is because backups are failing.  The log isn't growing out […]
SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL
Exporting very large Data to an XML file from SQL Server - I have a query that creates an xml file but I'm getting errors because the XML is too large. I've already set the Results To Grid Property XML Data to unlimited but I'm still getting the error.
Administration - SQL Server 2014
Always on - huge set of inserts and updates - Hi everyone, I need some advice please on how best to do something. We have a database which is 1TB in size, its part of a SQL 2014 Always On AG (synchronise sync). We have to do a very large data change, initial estimates are from testing it will take around 15 hours. Optimisation has […]
Development - SQL Server 2014
NOOB question with Case statement - hi here i am again with a noob question again: i'm trying to do this: case  when columnA <> 0 then columnB = 1 else columnB end but it return error. i used case statment before but im the same column, is it possible to use in multiple column with the argument based on one […]
SQL 2012 - General
service pack Question - Hi, I updated our SQL ser5ver from Sp2 to SP 4 today, and it says it was a success. However when I run say: I get Sp 2 So did I get the update or not if not what can I do? Thank you SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition')
SQL Server 2012 - T-SQL
join with GEOMETRY data type - I want to perform something like....   SELECT * FROM a JOIN b ON a.geometryField  = b.geometryField OR SELECT * FROM a JOIN b ON a.geometryField.  STEquals(b.geometryField ) OR SELECT geometryField FROM a WHERE geometryField  IN (SELECT geometryField FROM b )   You get the gist.  None of the above work.  I know I need […]
Need help query for current row and previous row - Hye, I've table and data as following, CREATE TABLE [dbo].[WeightStory]( [Idx] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [WeightDte] [datetime] NULL, [WhatWeight] [decimal](18, 3) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_WeightStory] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ( [Idx] ASC )WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY] ) ON [PRIMARY] GO SET IDENTITY_INSERT [dbo].[WeightStory] […]
Reporting Services
Failed Executions - Curious what everyone else is doing... I've always had a daily report showing me report subscriptions that failed.  I've had a task to better monitor all report interactions (subscriptions, cache refresh and interactive) sitting in my queue, but I put it off because of other higher priority tasks.  Right now I'm in the process of […]
 

 

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