RE: Another Oracle DBA gets "The Bullet" in the UK - Seeking an O

I remember we had procedures at the State. And what I would sometimes use was along the lines of: "You realize that you have not followed the procedures, but you want to put it into production? I'm willing to do that, but first you'll need to sign a release that you accept responsibility for any problems this may cause to the production applications...."

That usually got a "fall back and punt..."

Like Rachel, for the longest time I was it. I had to be present for "final review" and often during some of the early meetings. There were times I was "lucky" and caught that two applications were doing a lot of manipulating of the same data and would come up with ways we might possibly share...

Some were kind of ugly systems as well, average record may be over 800 characters and perhaps 40-60 fields. And with clinic cases, birth records, etc., you may not want to fully normalize. If 90% of the record matches only matched a difficult table for one code, why not put the other code in the record as well? Those kinds of things.

I guess basically the "Application DBA" side would try to catch the problems BEFORE they started.

Maks.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: root_at_fatcity.com [mailto:root_at_fatcity.com]On Behalf Of DENNIS
> WILLIAMS
> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 10:00 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> Subject: RE: Another Oracle DBA gets "The Bullet" in the UK - Seeking an
> O
>
>
> Cherie - Thanks for your feedback and thanks to other people. I participated
> in Toastmasters for many years and believe that it provided substantial
> benefits. The strongest benefits are the ability to make a formal
> presentation to a group of people. That can help dispel the image that you
> are just some techie that works down in the bowels of the organization.
> There are benefits even in one-on-one discussions, where you can apply some
> of the techniques such as eye contact and natural use of your hands. I
> arranged an interview between my boss and a colleague from a previous job.
> Despite stellar technical capabilities that I am in awe of, my friend didn't
> get the job because he stared at the floor during the entire interview. An
> experienced Toastmaster wouldn't make that mistake.
> I think there are other aspects to the issue of communication and
> ultimately communicating value to people. I find that I have a tendency to
> concentrate very strongly on projects. Obviously working on production
> systems you need to pay attention to what you are doing. However, developers
> may just feel that you are an old grouch that never pays attention to their
> projects, and naturally everyone feels that their project is the most
> important. This is where I am trying to apply some of Dale Carnegie's
> principles. But you have to be careful. Spend too much time chatting and
> they get the idea you don't have enough to do.
> I work for corporate and we support the company divisions. Corporate
> is an expense and only the divisions make profits. It is easy for each
> division to feel that they aren't getting their money's worth from your
> efforts. Similar to Rachel's idea, my manager has recently been organizing
> regular meetings with each division's IS manager to discuss their projects
> and their priorities. This has helped a lot in terms of making them feel
> that we see their priorities correctly, that I am doing the work they need,
> and when one of the developers asks me to create some tables I don't react
> so defensively, wondering why this is so darned short notice. Instead I say
> "oh yeah, your boss said that you were working on this really critical
> project, let's get this set up right away."
> I don't mean to imply that I've "mastered" this communication thing.
> I think these "softer" areas of human behavior require continual work and
> effort. I think that computers and databases are becoming more critical to
> all organizations and we are expected to communicate better. These tough
> times are a good opportunity for each of us to assess how well we
> communicate the value of what we do.
> Dennis Williams
> DBA
> Lifetouch, Inc.
> dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 6:20 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> O
>
>
>
> Dennis,
>
> We are starting up a Toastmasters group here where I work. I've always
> wanted to try that
> so I'm going to the introductory meeting today.
>
> Do you have access to a Toastmasters meeting at your work? I've heard a
> lot of good things
> about Toastmasters and I'm sure it would help interpersonal communications
> some.
>
> Cherie Machler
> Oracle DBA
> Gelco Information Network
>
>

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