Very well written and oh so true. All too often a company only knows they have a 'good DBA' when the rare occasion arises that he or she was the one to perform that last 'critical' restore to alleviate some major issue (or crisis as it usually is). There are lots of 'good DBAs' out there and even more growing into that role through perseverance, knowledge gathering, and problem solving each and every day. It is almost as if it is our collective career-wise lot is to begin to work ourselves out of a job from the onset of day one. Thankfully this is not usually the case. SQL changes, application technology changes and applications change over time - basically the only constant for a DBA is change.

We need to set our sights much. much higher though. We need to aspire to what was once espoused to me on what a day in the life of a 'great DBA' was.

- get to work

- get coffee, possibly even breakfast

- log in, eat breakfast and start reading emails

- look at the days calendar

- plan or replan the days activities

- deal with the problem tickets from the night before - there should be none

- answer email, read your email monitoring

- attend the daily turnover call

- attend the daily change management call

- replan the days activities

- read about 1/2 the daily morning newspaper

- get more coffee (or the beverage of your choice)

- attend the development related meetings needed

- continue your education through groups like SSC

- get lunch, read the rest of the newspaper

- answer email, read your email monitoring

- replan the days activities

- maybe and development steering committees

- deal with the problem tickets that are application related

- more coffee (or the beverage of your choice)

- an afternoon snack

- answer email, read your email monitoring

- replan the days activities

- finish the daily newspaper - the sports section or reading want-ads

- continue your education through groups like SSC

If you can get to this point career-wise you have almost achieved 'greatness'.

However there are a few more hurdles left before you can claim that accomplishment. If things are running that smoothly not a soul really knows that you even exist - well with the notable exception of your management and those who take you for granted. That is really how it should be. You should be that enigma that HR annually poses the following queries about.

- who is this person ?

- what do they really do ?

- how come we pay them so much ?

- how come we never hear anything about them ?

The final hurdle of achieving this espoused 'greatness' is making sure that your immediate management and all other management groups that affect your career path are aware of exactly what you do and how you get things done. Sounds like quite a paradox, being an unknown enigma and yet one of the enterprise's crucial players. Well, that is where knowing people and politics comes into play. There is really no online reference or book in print that teaches that to you what you need to do - it is basically experience and the mentoring tat you have received.

One might not think that this is possible. Well ... it is definitely achievable.