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Daily Coping Tip Take a small step to overcome a problem or worry I also have a thread at SQLServerCentral dealing with coping mechanisms and resources. Feel free to participate. For many of you out there working in a new way, I'm including a thought of the day on how to cope in this challenging time from The Action for Happiness Coping Calendar. My items will be on my blog, feel free to share yours. |
Be Smart An engineer at Google recently claimed that one of the AI chatbots might have become sentient. Great headlines, and whether true or not, this might bring some notoriety to the engineer.. It certainly did, and it also resulted in the engineer being suspended from his job. It's entirely possible this person might be fired. Perhaps I'm cynical, but I think the more talented he is, the more likely he keeps his job. Less talented, likely fired. This might not be fair, but I am a realist. The more value someone brings, the more tolerance for missteps. I give a talk on branding, and one of the things I do before giving you practical tips is to remind you to be cautious. A brand can be a very positive asset, but it can be a detriment as well. One of my stories is about Mark Jen, who Google fired after he blogged a few things about his employment. He was highly recruited and worked at Google for only a few days. I worked in a public company one time, in a large Operations group of about 20. We were listening to the earnings call one quarter when Security staff walked up and escorted a person 2 or 3 cubicles away from me out of the building. The returned to package up his stuff once he was gone. Apparently our boss told us this person had posted some of our earnings results while the call was going on, literally minutes (20 or 30) before they were announced. However, that's illegal and a violation of securities rules. Most of us know not to post passwords, IP addresses, or other sensitive infrastructure data on the Internet. Most of us should know not to post data, especially on a site like SQL Server Central. If we are looking for help with an issue, we need to mock up a situation. We might not be able to post code, and we might not be able to write about the specifics of our job in our blog. I've never had an issue with this in over 25 years of blogging and asking/answering questions on forums., but I've followed one rule. It's the same rule I heard one person say was their internal guidance for blogging. Be Smart. Don't post anything that might cause an issue. Whether you are in a forum or on your blog. Even inside your company, some information might be sensitive and compartmentalized. If you have a doubt, ask someone. It's that simple. Just ask someone who can give you a second opinion. I do this regularly with SQL Server information and Microsoft. There are times that I am unsure of something is under an NDA, so I ask. This includes words, pictures, and code. I do the same thing at Redgate, as sometimes things on our internal network might not be publicly released yet, so I just ask. On my personal accounts, I might ask my wife if I can post something before I do it. I've learned it's better to ask permission in these cases. I haven't always done that in my job. Sometimes rebooting a system or making a minor change without following every rule, but those have been cases where I had a very strong understanding of the situation and implications. It's not something I do lightly, and it's rare, but there are times to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. However when dealing with public disclosure of anything, I think you are smarter to ask permission first. Steve Jones - SSC Editor Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums |
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