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Daily Coping Tip

Identify what helped you get through a tough time in your life

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.

Being Reasonable

The last two years have changed the way many of us work in technology. The pandemic allowed many of us to work remotely, a challenge that many companies are struggling with. Or perhaps, management is struggling with and employees appreciate. In any case, no matter what your situation, the way we work has changed.

The change wasn't easy at times, and even though many people appreciated the extra time in their day from not commuting to work, they often had other challenges. Co-existing with others in a residence, finding a place to work that allows concentration, and even learning how to separate work from home life. These have been issues for many data professionals and other technologists. Even if we've had an easy time adapting, not all of our colleagues have felt the same way.

One of the core values that we have at Redgate Software is being reasonable. It's a somewhat amorphous value that I didn't know how to interpret or act on at first. Our former CEO repeated this often in updates, to the point where I have heard other management and employees use the verbiage in meetings on a regular basis.

I think as a company, we've learned how to be reasonable with others. We don't overly rely on policies or rules to guide us in how we accomplish work and interact with each other. Instead, we use judgment, and managers are flexible in their interactions with employees. As a Type-A, driven American, it has sometimes felt strange to not have everyone trying to outwork everyone else. It was an adjustment for me.

The idea is not that we do little work or avoid work, but that we avoid working too much. It's not about the hours anyone puts in, it's the contribution they make to their department. No one watches the parking lot to see who's in the office or who's logged in. Instead, we expect people to manage themselves, meet their commitments, and be accountable for the tasks they've been assigned. At the same time, we cover for each other and support the team. We've had people out sick, out for maternity/paternity leave, or struggle with other life-altering issues. The rest of their team will help cover for someone, knowing they will do the same for us.

We treat each other as humans, have empathy for others, and act towards others as we would want to be treated. At the same time, we have goals and missions to drive us forward to build a better company. We find balance in how we do this, and it's worked very well for over 20 years. In many ways, it's how I try to live life. There are good and bad days. There are busy ones, some hectic, chaotic times, but also slower times when I can recover and recharge.

It is really hard to describe what being reasonable means, and at times I am not quite sure how to act in a situation, but I try to put myself in someone else's shoes, see their point of view, and then decide how I would want to be treated. That usually guides me as to how I should proceed. It's worked well for 15 years for me and I look forward to being reasonable for the next 15.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

 
 Featured Contents
SQLServerCentral Article

How to Backup Redshift Log Views

aqkhan_k from SQLServerCentral

Learn how to create a backup of log data in Amazon's Redshift.

External Article

A day in the life of a DBA using SQL Monitor: in a 90 second video!

Additional Articles from Redgate

We created a new, short video to show how a DBA can use SQL Monitor in their day to day work, including sharing reports with senior leaders. Watch it now.

External Article

Running a Python Application as a Windows Service

Additional Articles from MSSQLTips.com

In this article, we look at how to build a Python application that runs as a Windows Service to handle ongoing routine tasks.

Blog Post

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Scary Scalar Functions - Part Three: The Cure

Zikato from StraightforwardSQL

Scary Scalar Functions series overview

Part One: Parallelism
Part Two: Performance
Part Three: The Cure

Foreword
In the first two parts, we have seen why the Scalar functions (UDFs) are a problem for the...

Blog Post

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - What's in a name? (T-SQL Tuesday #152)

Zikato from StraightforwardSQL

Foreword
This month’s invitation is from Deborah Melkin (b|t), about venting anything you want. So let’s start this rant.

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and...

 

 Question of the Day

Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):

 

Azure Data Studio Server Group Colors

I have a number of Server Groups in Azure Data Studio. server groups in ADS I can edit any of these groups and there is a list of colors available: ADS Edit Server Group and colors I want to add newer, yellow color to this list. How can I do this?

Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

 

 

 Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

The Broken UDF

I have this code on SQL Server 2017:

CREATE FUNCTION AddOne
(@i INT)
RETURNS INT
AS
BEGIN
  DECLARE @result INT;
  SELECT @result = @i + 1;
  RETURN @result;
END;
GO
SELECT AddOne(3)

When I execute this, I get the following error:

Msg 195, Level 15, State 10, Line 11 'AddOne' is not a recognized built-in function name.

What is wrong?

Answer: The schema is not specified in the function execution

Explanation: While you can create a UDF in your default schema, you must use at least the two part naming (schema+name) to execute the function. Ref: CREATE FUNCTION- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/statements/create-function-transact-sql?redirectedfrom=MSDN&view=sql-server-ver16#general-remarks

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

 

 

 

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.


SQL Server 2017 - Administration
AG upgrade - I will be running the application upgrade process which will run for couple of hours and behind the seen it will make couple of table changes such as create the new table with the field changes and then insert data into the new table from old table and rename it back to same as old […]
SQL Server 2016 - Administration
maintenance plan issue - one of our  maintenance plan is  geting failed  with the  below error , checked in logs  but not able to find  any thing The Execute method on the task returned error code 0x80131501 (An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch.). The Execute method must succeed, and indicate the result using an "out" […]
SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL
SQL server help with counting - I am including some sample data to explain the requirement. I need a column that gives the total of Prg1 to Prg6 if the values are different Ex: Need to compare each field data from prg1 to prg6. If all 6 fields have different values (p1, p2, p3, p4, p5, p6), I need the count as […]
How to replicate data with increasing PK - I have a case where  in non prod environment, i will have to replicate existing data multiple times with a increasing PK value. Can anyone please help achieving this without loops or cursors. For example CREATE TABLE Table_A (Id1 Numeric(5,0) not null PRIMARY KEY,Name1 Varchar(20) null,date1 datetime2(7) null) go INSERT INTO Table_A VALUES('1','A1',GETDATE()) INSERT INTO […]
DateDiff days as column headings - Good Morning Have two tables Customers (Customer_ID   CREATE TABLE UHC_customers ( customer_id int NOT null, --Primary key unique values AgeFallGroup varchar(6), InsuranceStartDate Date, Region varchar(20), CustStatus Varchar(10) ); INSERT INTO UHC_customers VALUES (1001, '20-29', '03/25/2022','North America','Active') INSERT INTO UHC_customers VALUES (1002, '40-49', '02/18/2022','Asia','Active'); INSERT INTO UHC_customers VALUES (1003, '20-29', '01/01/2022','Asia','Active'); INSERT INTO UHC_customers VALUES […]
The step was retried the requested number of times (5) without succeeding. - We have one schedule job which is copying the backup to the offsite server through xcopy. This job successfully run for 4-5 days in a week and failed for 1-2 days due to following error. Executed as user: service_Account. The step was retried the requested number of times (5) without succeeding. The step failed. Sharing […]
SQL 2012 - General
Migrating from MS SQL Server Standard 2012 to SQL Server Express 2019? - I'm the IT guy with no real SQL experience. We are currently on SQL Server Standard 2012. Our database is 2gb and we have no jobs that are running. Powers that be don't want to spend the $3k on the SQL Server Standard 2019 license and SQL Express is compatabile with the software we are […]
SQL Server 2019 - Administration
SQL Server and Azure Blob Storage - I'm fairly new to Azure Blob Storage. Every once and awhile we will be restoring and the azure database backup file will be in use by another process. From what I understand, I need to break the lease on the backup file, so that my process can then acquire a lease. I'm really looking for […]
Does SQL cache linked server destination IPs? - We use DNS aliases in our linked servers that point to the server where each database lives. Tonight we moved some databases to new servers. TTL was set to 1 minute before the DNS aliases were changed to the new hosts. There was a view on a separate server that referenced a moved database via […]
General Cloud Computing Questions
Cloud path for beginners - Hi, I am in my junior year of an undergrad degree in electronics and communication. Looking for a way to enter the Cloud industry. As I don't belong to the computer science field, what are the basic pre-requisite for starting a career in the cloud? should I start looking for a job after my degree […]
Azure Data Factory
Pass Dynamic content from Trigger into pipeline for use - I am needing help in passing a dynamic value from the trigger into the parameters/variables of the ADF pipeline.  What I have so far is: A snapshot_date parameter A snapshot_date variable With a Set variable activity where my variable name is snapshot_date and the value is @pipeline().parameters.snapshot_date When I hit Debug at the top, I […]
General
Excluding deprecated columns from EF - We have a handful of deprecated columns in a table that is referenced by multiple applications. We were going to remove these columns but there are a couple legacy modules that still reference them and these are not going to be changed. So we're going to leave the columns in the table but we don't […]
SQL and Feature Flag Use in Software Development - Hi this is Palak Sharma I am in final year of my engineering and I have start developing Software, however I am on the way in this development but I have some confusion in this process that how SQL and Feature Flag play important role in Software Development. I have google for same problem but […]
Strategies and Ideas
Data warehouse - how to handle 2 FACT tables? - Hello, I am quite new to data warehousing and was just wondering what people think the best approach would be for the below? We have a star schema in place however I have been tasked to add a new Fact table (the payments one) into our existing SSAS model. I am planning on using the […]
Integration Services
How to import updated records from XML files into SQL Database? - Hello everyone, So from last few weeks I was trying to design a SSIS package that would read some XML files that I have and move the data from it to the multiple tables I want. These file contains different nodes like (parent node) and
, , (all child nodes of Individual) etc. […]
 

 

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