Hi Brad, interesting topic, but also very relevant!

As the only DBA in our environment, I have the privilige of running the show myself, and everyone else relying on my advice and assistance.....but....things arent always that easy..

I found by coming in a hour earlier than anyone, "prepping" the environment for their use, checking the jobs, making sure our dev environment is updated etc ensures that I am free to monitor all activities through the day.

I constantly check all processes running against the DB's so ensure optimal performance for the end users, but also to make sure the developers arent pushing code that could cause problems, block, delete etc...

On a daily basis I try to send them at least one tip/trick from a best practise point of view...

Myself and the current developers enherited a shaky system, with "weird" procedures, so applying best practise from day one was the only way to go forward..what has been done, cannot be undone (without hours of work, testing - you know the drill).

Stopping anyone who is not playing nice with my DB's is also fun, and I got the clearance from Management to do so ( 😀 )

I think it is each DBA's responsibility to look after his DB's as if they were his/her children, and wouldnt let anything bad happen to them, to make sure they are warm (online), not being teased (hammered with "select *'s "), and not being abused....

I feel - the less manual maintenance I have to do through the day, the more time I have to play cop when it matters.

Oh, and lastly, on the subject of Dev's not respecting you.... whenever you try to point out a fault from their side, always, but always back it up with proof, or tests to indicate, that they are wrong indeed, and that will get you some respect...