A DBA tale

Bob walked into his new office with overwhelming confidence as the exiting DBA finished packing his belongings. As Bob walked into the room, the DBA stopped a moment, walked to his desk, took out three envelopes and handed them to Bob.The exiting guy told Bob not to open them, as they would only be effective if they were opened at the right time. Bob asked when that would be, and the exiting DBA said that, when a situation came up where you don't know what to do, open #1 before you walk in to talk to the boss.

Bob got busy and got into the work, handled everything that came his way until one day, he was asked to get some data from a backup. Bob found out that his backups were failing. Bob remembered the envelopes, tore open #1 which contained a slip of paper which read "Blame it on the last DBA". Bob walked into the office wondering what to say and thought of how easily it could have been avoided. He checked the SQL Mail setup, even tested it! How was he to know that MIS would change something in the mail setup? Of course, to blame them would incur the wrath of the MIS department, and being a newbie, he didn't want to do that, so he blindly took the advice in the envelope. His boss agreed that it was the fault of the previous DBA, but told Bob that all SQL Server issues were his problem from now on. Bob learned from his mistake and set up SQL Mail to send him email upon success AND failure of any job. This way, if he didn't receive an email, he'd know there was a problem.

Two weeks went by, and Bob was a legend in his own mind. He loved the new backup strategy he'd implemented. It was so sleek and flexible, there was no way he'd lose data. Then, it was put to the test, and the recovery operation failed. He'd had successful emails regarding his backups and couldn't understand how this could happen. Was it the drive or the server??? He had no idea why he couldn't restore from his backups. Then he remembered the envelopes. Tearing open the second one, it said, simply "Blame the hardware." This was a great revelation to Bob. He'd never tested his recovery plan from start to finish, and never restored a backup in test before going live. Bob went to his boss and told him it was the hardware. The boss agreed, but pointed out that the company had just lost 48 hours worth of work. Bob left, with his tail between his legs. Bob learned that it's important to test your recovery plan.

He was just about to turn in his resignation when he realized he had another envelope. It couldn't possibly help him feel better about the hole he'd dug for himself, but what had he to lose? Bob opened the last envelope, read the note, and smiled. "Create 3 envelopes, label them #1, #2, #3, and create notes that say "Blame it on the last DBA", "Blame the hardware.", and in the third envelope place this note, and start looking for a new job. You're the only one to blame."