This has been a hectic few weeks.
Along with moving, I have two major projects at work that have absolute drop dead dates within a week of each other. During the move last weekend, I was without my cable modem for 43 hours, 21 minutes.
Of course, the two major projects at work still had to get worked on, so I succumbed to working over dialup. And not just any dialup, NetZero freebie dialup. Now I don't have anything against NetZero dialup; it's a great free service if you remember to click on the ads every 15 minutes or so. It's just when you're used to using a cable modem, dialup is quite painful.
Over the four days I was off, I made three calls, was paged twice, and responded to about 24 emails. As the weekend was winding down, I thought to myself, Are we too connected? You can call me at home. You can call me on my cell phone. You can page/text message me. You can email me at work. You can email me at home. If I'm not at home I can be at a hot-spot in 15 minutes to "dial in".
Is anything that urgent?
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3 comments:
I don't consider us to be "too connected" we are always connected because our jobs dictate it, or should I say our ethics dictate it. It always goes back to the "I'm a DBA 24/7" attitude. As DBA's we know that our dependance on being connected directly correlates with keeping the companies heart beat alive.
I know if I didn't have my cell phone surgically attached to my hip, I would have a complete break down because I would be disconnected.
Depends on whether you live to work or work to live. :-D
It's ok to be dedicated and a perfectionist (I have tended to be that way in the past) - but you've got to apply some limits to that, or you wind up living at the office. You have to make sure you make time for life, you only get one.
Any DBA that is not always working to make sure there is adequate backup and some arrangement of responsibilities so that they are not constantly on call is just not making it in life. They probably don't like the dixie chicks either.
For me at least, a bare minimum kind of rotation needs to involve one week of being primary on call, one week of being secondary on call, and a week ( or two even better ) not on the call list "under a fire is burning in the data center".
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