August 11, 2016 at 11:34 am
jim.donovan (8/11/2016)
I am a junior guy myself (and NOT with a DBA background)... but, with an *excellent* senior DBA to learn from (and, it's not the only role he is assigned)...I have been impressed with a nice combination of assigning the: "HERE learn this stuff... on your own" and report back; along with GOOD guidance on where to find resources, such as MSFT Virtual Academy (SQL Server Admin, videos) and some super blogs/webPage suggestions, like Brent Ozar's "Accidental DBA" six month class.
Assigning things like, "update the Server SPEC" collection of files, may seem mundane -- but, helps get the new guy familiar with your environments. And, besides, as the senior guy you had meant to get-to-that-someday-soon, I'm sure.
It takes patience -- especially where it takes time from your real job... but, the payback will *hopefully* be well worth it!!!
Thanks for the feedback. Good to hear what helps.
August 11, 2016 at 11:50 pm
S7 (8/10/2016)
Thanks, Operational dba. The person didn't have a dba background but came from application support. I'm a senior DBA and the person was hired to help me. Doesn't report to me but I am responsible to provide things to do. The person seems to be waiting for me to give him things to work on. But, there are many things that can be done and i'm usually swamped with different tasks. I find myself struggling to manage the person and the person has been employed for over a year now.
Just some suggestions...
Have you explained this to the Junior DBA and have you identified what both their limits and opportunities are? Are you allowing this person to "beltloop" you while you're doing your work so they can learn what to do? Are you actually taking the time to mentor this person and explain what they CAN do? If you do it correctly, you don't have to "manage" this person. You train them, mentor them, be there when they have a question and encourage them to "go for it"! Make sure that you have policies and procedures to follow for daily stuff and make sure they understand when a problem requires two heads instead of just one.
For goodness sake, train them well enough so that you don't have to both manage them AND do everything yourself. Loosen up! Train them well enough to trust them. Make them feel like they're part of a team.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
August 19, 2016 at 6:15 am
Junior should really only apply to experience, not just a subset of tasks from a Senior.
Juniors should be able to do everything a Senior can do over time. If you restrict a Junior, they will never learn to be a Senior. They should essentially have the same responsibilities because they are essentially the same role, just at different experience levels. The experience level determines when the resource should be activated on the given task.
While I understand that most take the approach that a Junior does not have the skillset to do a certain task a Senior does, that's where training comes into play. If you clearly identify the Junior must do a certain task before hand, but they are not capable of doing said task to the standard the team or the business agrees on as being acceptable, then that gives you the foundation and reason to train them.
I like this approach better because it positions the Junior with HR to eventually replace or strengthen the Senior. This sets the path pretty clearly with the Junior from day one on the job. You are being hired as a Junior who will with time be trained and transition into a Senior.
If that will never happen, regardless of experience and still be limited by a subset of responsibilities from the Senior, then you're not looking for a Junior DBA. You're looking for another type of DBA.
August 23, 2016 at 7:28 am
Are you allowing this person to "beltloop" you while you're doing your work so they can learn what to do? Are you actually taking the time to mentor this person and explain what they CAN do? If you do it correctly, you don't have to "manage" this person. You train them, mentor them, be there when they have a question and encourage them to "go for it"! Make sure that you have policies and procedures to follow for daily stuff and make sure they understand when a problem requires two heads instead of just one.
For goodness sake, train them well enough so that you don't have to both manage them AND do everything yourself. Loosen up! Train them well enough to trust them. Make them feel like they're part of a team.
I really agree with this. However busy you are, it's important to let them sit with you while you do the harder stuff, and also to delegate work to them. As the Senior DBA you should theoretically be able to fix anything that they might break. If you leave them on their own to sink or swim you won't get the best out of them, no matter how motivated they are.
Next time anything bad goes down, tell them to grab a chair, sit next to you and watch ("Get over here, JimBob. We're going to force quorum on a cluster and then try to recover our AlwaysOn Availability Groups :w00t:.") ACT CALM. They need to think you are calm :-P.
August 23, 2016 at 8:07 am
Beatrix Kiddo (8/23/2016)
ACT CALM. They need to think you are calm :-P.
This, a thousand times this...
When I was still in a sysadmin role and the senior guy in the department, one of the other techs told me he always appreciated how I handled it when he would call with a problem he couldn't figure out. He would be on-site at a customer, trying to fix something, run into a problem or not be able to figure out where to start with the problem he was working on, and call for help.
He told me that my being calm (which, as I wasn't on-site with the customer breathing down my back was easy) and telling him to slow down, relax, always helped.
Now, I do my best to remain calm (even if I'm rushing like a cheetah on steroids) as by doing so, I don't get as easily flustered by whatever problem I'm trying to resolve and I (at least) appear to be in control of the situation to the people with the problem.
August 23, 2016 at 8:35 am
jasona.work (8/23/2016)
Beatrix Kiddo (8/23/2016)
ACT CALM. They need to think you are calm :-P.
This, a thousand times this...
When I was still in a sysadmin role and the senior guy in the department, one of the other techs told me he always appreciated how I handled it when he would call with a problem he couldn't figure out. He would be on-site at a customer, trying to fix something, run into a problem or not be able to figure out where to start with the problem he was working on, and call for help.
He told me that my being calm (which, as I wasn't on-site with the customer breathing down my back was easy) and telling him to slow down, relax, always helped.
Now, I do my best to remain calm (even if I'm rushing like a cheetah on steroids) as by doing so, I don't get as easily flustered by whatever problem I'm trying to resolve and I (at least) appear to be in control of the situation to the people with the problem.
I am calm, some say too calm. Its a fault of mine apparently.
August 24, 2016 at 10:56 am
S7 (8/10/2016)
Do you give him/her a daily tasks to todo? How do you manage them? please help.
More days than not I still feel like a junior DBA. There is so much to learn and do. But I found this page really helpful:
http://houseofbrick.com/routine-sql-server-dba-tasks/[/url]
You could look through those lists and see which ones you want to assign to the junior DBA so he can get the hang of the routine.
Good luck. Please post back what you end up doing - it will help us all!!
- webrunner
-------------------
A SQL query walks into a bar and sees two tables. He walks up to them and asks, "Can I join you?"
Ref.: http://tkyte.blogspot.com/2009/02/sql-joke.html
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