Pick me, Pick me!

The opportunity to be mentored for a couple of months by a leader in your field has prompted me to write my first blog.  Documentation is the last thing that would ever pop into my mind as an activity for fun.  Over my 15 years, off and on as a DBA, I have never really worked with other DBAs.  The only ways I could ever bounce an idea off of someone was on the internet or after a SQL Saturday event.

The area I think I need the most help in is identifying what I should know as a DBA, but do not know.  Just like the old adage "You don't know what you don't know".  Over the years, I have been on a few job interviews, that I know I wasn't really qualified for, to get questions which I should know the answers to.  One time I was asked a question on a job interview, I should have known the answer to.  I went back home to research the answer to that question after the interview.  To my advantage, the exact issue came up within a week after my interview.  Having been exposed to concept and researching it prior to it coming up really helped me shine at work.

The other area I would like help in my career with is the question of should I have some knowledge of everything, or all knowledge of something specific.  Would it be better to be a DBA that knows everything he can about query tuning.  Or a DBA that knows how to do SSIS, SSRS, building data warehouse, indexing strategies, etc...   I always struggle with is I only have so much room in my head, and what I should fill it with.


Derek Czarny
dczarny@outlook.com