Re: Fed Up with being a DBA

"Daniel Morgan" <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote in message news:1063676628.378936_at_yasure...

> rethink what they are doing. Short term
> profits at the expense of the corporation's future is not what the
> stockholders want though many managers seem
> able to fool themselves into believing that when asked "How did you do
> last quarter?"

What the heck, they are only judged on their performance the same way: short term. The game is: ASAP, either get promoted to VP or do the "lateral shuffle", ie, leave. It's always been like that at O.

> I can produce about 100 people per year coming out of my program. That
> is all. Hardly a dent in the job market
> sufficient to make an employer put into an advertisement UW Certified
> candidates only need apply.

A similar idea to yours was put together by a uni professor over here quite a few years ago. Oracle basically shot it to pieces with the OCP stuff. The guy got so discouraged he threw the whole thing down the drain. I've since talked to another who would be interested in picking it up from where G.Feuerlicht left it.

But the level of interest for this from the UG and Oracle is basically nill. The former, because there is no potential sponsorship $$$ in it for them. The latter, because there is no tangible short-term profit in it.

If any1 knows how to turn this around and how to make this viable economically (not profitable, just viable) without "corporate" sponsors and private "certificates", I'll be happy to help. Can't do much more where I'm stuck now.

> Perhaps we need to get together a handful of people in the States, UK,
> Oz, etc. and put something together that has real meaning. And do it to
> improve our industry ... not just as a revenue source. The minute it
> goes from being a non-profit to
> a for-profit the incentive is to crank as many people through as are
> willing to write a check. And that is the reason why
> previous certification programs have little or no meaning.

Too true. But I think it needs to have at least a solid foundation. So it won't *need* to resort to profit. I've been racking my brains for years trying to figure out a way of achieving it. Short of getting a religion, a party, a charity or a union involved, I see no other way of doing it. Someone better than me will find one, I'm sure.

> You can look them straight in the eye and tell them 15 minutes worth of
> real work will take 6 months and they haven't
> enough knowledge to laugh and fire you.

Or better yet like I saw recently: sell them several million $$$ of custom doc workflow system that will last a (SINGLE!!!) week before it needs to be re-developed: no archive, no purge. Base it on M$ Exchange (a product widely recognized for its scalability!), in a site that has Oracle all the way through.

Get the Oracle rep to recommend one of their ex-employees to be the "new dba" to rubber stamp all this. Get the IT manager on side to pass all this through the TCO brigade. Who will gobble anything that reads "M$" anyway.

I can't stop thinking there were some very serious "side-incentives" going on in this one! Safe as apples, it went ahead. Sure as the Sun coming out every morning, it carked after the first week. Haven't heard from the Oracle "rep" since. Probably enjoying his "commission" on the placement of the "dba". Or promoted to VP of something.

Meantime, M$ is in there being the "hero" that fixes the mess. When before they didn't have a foot in the door. I wonder how much of this sort of thing ever reaches Larry's ears...

> And the instructor knew the material. That too is important. Today too
> many of the instructors couldn't
> survive without PowerPoint slides and prepared examples. I have yet to
> bring the first slide into my classroom
> and work without a net. Live typing into Oracle usually off the top of
> my head. A lot of what the students learn
> is that ORA- is normal and how to deal with them. Something Oracle Ed
> has never dared to do.

A very good point. This guy could do exactly that, day in day out, without missing a beat. And the subject was real-time job scheduling and very high volume TP, something that even today would cause a few serious headaches to anyone...

> to generate sample data that simulated the airplane configuration
> process. I got the short straw. ;-)

Hehehe! You could spell the darn name, couldn't ya? :D Seriously: know exactly what you mean.

> >
> And with this Scotch ... I'm halfway there too.
>

Darn good idea! Your very good health.

-- 
Cheers
Nuno Souto
wizofoz2k_at_yahoo.com.au.nospam