For years I was a consultant and MS Trainer working with SQL Server. This served be well as I got to experience a lot of different installations and problems. In 2009 I decided I had enough of the travel and not know what the next assignment was going to be and took a job as a full time DBA. I have to say, I love it. I have responsiblity for servers around the world, I got to set them up to my specifications, I determine the jobs, alarms, monitoring, everything. I have automated everything. And as problems arise, I am able to set up alerts, jobs and notifications so that things get better and better. Finally, I am able to practice what I preached for years in the classroom.

Not to mention I am actually making more money and spending less time than I was as a consultant. This year I even get to work on Oracle and we are upgrading to SQL 2008 R2. Life is good.