Tag: career development

T-SQL Tuesday #157 – End of Year Activity

This month’s invitation and recap from Garry Bargsley.

Welcome to the final T-SQL Tuesday for 2022. My ask is, what do you have planned for end-of-year activities for your SQL environment? Do you have annual processes or procedures you run? Do you clean up documentation? Do you just take time off and hope someone else does the work?

Some Examples:
  • Purge log data
  • Archive databases for long term
  • Look for orphaned data/log files on your SQL Servers
  • Do Security analysis for no longer needed accounts
  • Add new years dates to dimension tables

T-SQL Tuesday #152 – It Depends

Invitation and round up from Deborah Melkin.

I came to a realization lately that I have a few opinions about databases. And I’m pretty sure that you do too. After all, I’ve read your blogs, chatted with you, and seen your Twitter rants.

But we’re database professionals. It’s supposed to depend, right?

Except we all have experiences that shape how we approach our work. One minute your coworker asks you a question about doing X. You reply with “It Depends…” leading into a 5-10 minute rant. This may include some or all of the following:

  • Stories starting with “that one time at that client”
  • References to blog posts you read\wrote\should write
  • Commentary on code – the good, the bad, & the ugly
  • Personal theories and philosophies on the topic

All of this is followed by “Thank you for coming to my TED talk” and a “I’m sorry, what was your question again?

So yeah… this may have been inspired by an actual conversation… or two… or ten. I apologize to my coworkers… again…

So for this month’s T-SQL Tuesday, I want you to give us that rant. Tell us about the experiences, the code, the posts that inspired you, and all the gory details in between. And what is it that makes you so passionate about this topic that “It Depends” gets tossed out the window? Pull out your soapbox and tell us all about it

T-SQL Tuesday #122 – Imposter Syndrome

Invitation and wrap up from Jon Shaulis

As we enter the new year, I’m sure many of us are setting goals, resolutions, or perhaps beginning new challenges. Change can often be terrifying, but that’s how we grow. With this in mind, the topic I’d like us to write about this month is “Imposter Syndrome”.

Imposter syndrome isn’t a topic I’ve seen addressed before via T-SQL Tuesday and this is an issue I’ve commonly seen in the IT industry.

Imposter Syndrome – The persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills.

https://www.lexico.com/definition/impostor_syndrome

I can assure you that if you have felt this way before, you are not alone. People in the community who I would consider experts have stated they felt (and sometimes still feel) imposter syndrome. These are people with more experience than years I’ve existed on this planet and they still feel this way. Coincidentally, this triggers my own imposter syndrome when I think about that.

T-SQL Tuesday Topic

I want to read your stories about when you’ve experienced, seen, or overcome imposter syndrome! Was there a job that you felt you were ill-prepared for? Did you make a mistake or did someone say something that made you question if you were a true data professional? Maybe there was a particular task you ran into that made you question your experience? Did you resolve your tasks and succeed in your job? How did you overcome that feeling of being an imposter and solve your challenges? Maybe you haven’t experienced it yourself but you saw someone who was feeling imposter syndrome, were you able to help them?

You can be technical or non-technical with this post, the goal is to share experiences to help those also experiencing imposter syndrome. Maybe you are still feeling it, sometimes walking through your challenges can help you brainstorm solutions.

T-SQL Tuesday #096: Folks Who Have Made a Difference

Invitation from Ewald Cress.

Because many of us have our brains fried after last week’s PASS Summit, I’m going for a non-technical subject: the opportunity to give a shout-out to people (well-known or otherwise) who have made a meaningful contribution to your life in the world of data.

I can certainly think of many candidates for my submission, and the hardest part may be narrowing down the options to a manageable set. You may opt to write about a single incident, let rip with a mini-biography, or anything in between. And if you want to contextualise it with juicy technical detail, be my guest!

Since I’m hosting, I get to jump the queue at this point by thanking Adam Machanic. His blogging and writing has provided me with much food for thought over my SQL Server career, and I loved that one chance I got to attend a one-day precon with him a few years ago. He is a total rock star, and I mean that in the nicest possible sense.

Adam has created and gently managed this particular medium of T-SQL Tuesday, which has given me a few much-needed writing deadlines and an opportunity to connect with people I wouldn’t normally cross paths with. Exhibit A: Deb Melkin and I killing time with conversation in the airport last Saturday. We had never met before, but had participated in T-SQL Tuesday together – my first one IIRC – which was pretty much the extent of our prior acquaintance.

He has also helped me in a more direct way. A few months ago, I was considering submitting a session for SQL Saturday, and found myself staring at his great blog post on writing abstracts. Feeling the need to bounce some ideas around, I emailed him with a few simple questions. His very detailed response was helpful in getting my thoughts crystallised, but the interaction also gave me the courage to go for it. So thank you, Adam.

You get the idea. Find a person or several people to pick on, and tell us a shareable story or two about how they have made a positive contribution in your life.

T-SQL Tuesday #34 – Help! I Need Somebody

Invitation from Rob Volk.

n the beginning…


SQL Server has changed a lot since I started with it.  <Cranky Old Guy>Back in my day, Books Online was neither.  There were no blogs. Google was the third-place search site. There were perhaps two or three communityforums where you could ask questions.  (Besides the Microsoft newsgroups…which you had to access with Usenet.  And endure the wrath of…Celko.)  Your “training” was reading a book, made from real dead trees, that you bought from your choice of brick-and-mortar bookstore. And except for your local user groups, there were no conferences, seminars, SQL Saturdays, or any online video hookups where you could interact with a person. You’d have to call Microsoft Support…on the phone…a LANDLINE phone.  And none of this “SQL Family” business!</Cranky Old Guy>

Even now, with all these excellent resources available, it’s still daunting for a beginner to seek help for SQL Server.  The product is roughly 1247.4523 times larger than it was 15 years ago, and it’s simply impossible to know everything about it.*  So whether you are a beginner, or a seasoned pro of over a decade’s experience, what do you do when you need help on SQL Server?