TravisDBA (5/1/2013)
majorbloodnock (5/1/2013)
umailedit (4/30/2013)
Let me take the contrary view here.Hypothetical Question: You are about to have a brain aneurysm operated on. Who would you pick?
1) A brain surgeon with little less technical skills but who you can get along with nicely.
2) The brain surgeon who is a genius who has a 100% success rate and is the most arrogant prick you have ever met.
If the surgeon in point 2 was regularly pissing off the rest of the team, especially to the extent they weren't concentrating properly on their jobs, I'll take number one, please. As with most things, surgery involves teamwork, and teamwork involves people getting on together. Very few jobs exist that aren't a compromise of technical skill and people skills.
I have a sister that was a RN nurse so I can speak from her experience here. If they were operating on my shoulder I might (enphasizing the word MIGHT) agree with you, but one of the most important organs in my body!!!! I'm sorry, but I will take expertise (Point#2) here everytime. I don't want a real nice guy in that operating room bringing his B or C game. I don't care how nice he is. I want the guy that knows his stuff and what he is doing and bringing his A+ game with all his knowledge, period. Most operating room staff leave that personality crap at the operating room door anyway. Particularly, when it involves someone's life. The hospital and them can be held liable if they let stuff like that affect an patient outcome. My sister used to tell me all the time when I was younger when she would come home from work complaining about a certain doctor on her floor "But you know, although that doctor is a 14-carat gold prick, if I was in this hospital I would want him taking care of me.". That pretty much says it all... 😀
I'd like to wholeheartedly agree on this one!
People skills ARE very important in the operating room. If the lead surgeon is not expecting exact pefection from everyone on his team, if he is not riding his team unflinchingly like the strictest marine drill instructor possible, if he does not absolutely and thunderously berate the perpetrator of even the most seemingly minor mistake possible, then he doesn't have the people skills needed for his job.
I would expect nothing less, HOWEVER once a surgeon is in a position to lead his team during some of the most intricate and demanding work there is, you can bet that he has the people skills required of him and this particular part of his skillset is probably receiving the LEAST of his attention during his workday, and the people that work with him will in all likelyhood not test his "people skills" in the slightest, because their work is truly life and death, and unlike some of the computer folk I have occasionally run into during my career, these are grownups who show up for work.
Now sure we may get accidental DBA's, folks thrown into database tasks relatively unprepared and subsequently end up here asking seemingly simple questions who we hopefully help out with grace and good humor, heck chances are, we even have DBAs who haven't even pulled down college degrees related to their work.
But lets get real here, a lead surgeon isn't a lead surgeon because he unexpectedly got handed some responsibilities he wasn't immediately prepared to do, a lead surgeon has done large amounts of coursework, internship, residency, specialization, and he probably doesn't have to worry that he is pissing anybody off, because at this level of endeavour, people who would somehow get pissed off at any perceived breach of manners during a life saving operation, probably ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO PARTICIPATE IN life saving operations.