RE: Question about time accounting at your work
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:02:08 -0400
Message-ID: <6B3493ABEE194842A8EFC3FC3B23DE6A23D9699E6F_at_MSXMBCCR2.roswellpark.org>
We will be implementing something at my current employer and it will be tied to our time and attendance system. My previous jobs we had to do status reports. I found the easiest way to capture my tasks were to use my day calendar on my desk and jot down what I did for the day. Then at the end of the week or month convert it to the status report. Very simple to do. Very low tech but useful.
My bosses used to tell me I didn't work on enough projects. But I was responsible for keeping 14 plants running oracle applications and 2 plants running sql server. I was nicknamed the patch master and lock smith because of these apps. Patching alone took up the majority of my time if any of you working with oracle apps can atest to. Then replying to helpdesk tickets and assisting developers. I kept telling them there was no time to be put on a new project. "But you are just not visible......"
I tell people a DBA is like an offensive lineman in football. Do your job and no one notices. But get a penalty and they announce your number to the national audience.
I think a status report is a positve. Even if you show the same things over and over. I think that DBA's find that there biggest fear. It doesn't look like we are doing enough.......on paper. But if you start to list the things out you would be surprized.
Although I firmly disagree with the poster below. I couldn't see creating a situation. There is enough to do. Especially as we get into enhanced security, compliance, separation of duties and project management besides DBA type activities.
But would anyone be willing to share a template that maybe we can all look at for capturing that "status"?
Brian
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Kellyn Pedersen [kjped1313_at_yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 8:15 PM To: 'oracle-l_at_freelists.org'; ChrisDavid.Taylor_at_ingrambarge.com Subject: Re: Question about time accounting at your work
Although I don't have to do this in my current position, I've actually recommended time tracking for DBA's as a lead. The reason was simple and one you mentioned below- rarely do anyone other than DBA's know what the value of a DBA is! We are commonly the first group to be shaved off from during budget cuts and the first position to be opened up again when the cycle of value realization rears it's ugly head... :) I also think it's incredibly important to show the value of your work and how much a DBA can provide in long-term saving to a company. Primarily my skills keep my employers/companies from making unnecessary hardware purchases, pre-mature upgrades to systems, experiencing outages that could have been pro-actively stopped and ensuring that development to production is done right and not twice. I have worked with DBA's and developers that thought the only way to show they were an asset meant they should create situations that required their intervention so that they could prove that they were necessary to the busines. In my eyes, that kind of "superman" behavior only makes them into a liability, not an asset.
Kellyn Pedersen
Multi-Platform DBA
I-Behavior
- On Fri, 9/18/09, Taylor, Chris David <ChrisDavid.Taylor_at_ingrambarge.com> wrote:
From: Taylor, Chris David <ChrisDavid.Taylor_at_ingrambarge.com> Subject: Question about time accounting at your work To: "'oracle-l_at_freelists.org'" <oracle-l_at_freelists.org> Date: Friday, September 18, 2009, 2:28 PM
Ok fellow full-time employee DBAs I have a question. (Not for contractors :)
How many of you use project accounting at your place of work. Where every hour has to be accounted for against projects, or maintenance or some other code?
I was basically told I'm not "visible enough" --- this is 1 year after receiving a ton of awards and accolades for solving a problem at one of our sister companies. Now it "appears" that my value to the company is being questioned. I imagine questions like "What does he do all day?" are being asked.
Usually I lump database support into 1 group, and patches/maintenance into another group and performance tuning into a 3rd group. Now, I'm goign to have to start micromanaging my hours. I work for an internal IT department at a large corporation. I think we bill the other departments for services, but not sure.
Anyone else have to deal with this?
Chris Taylor
Sr. Oracle DBA
Ingram Barge Company
Nashville, TN 37205
Office: 615-517-3355
Cell: 615-354-4799
Email: chris.taylor_at_ingrambarge.com<http://us.mc320.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=chris.taylor@ingrambarge.com>
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Received on Sat Sep 19 2009 - 10:02:08 CDT