This week I am reviewing my accomplishments for 2013 and thinking of possible goals for 2014 in preparation for my annual performance review. After reviewing my notes about what I did this year and brainstorming about what I want to do next year I thought of four categories to put the types of activity that I do as an Oracle Database Administrator. Maybe sharing these will help someone else out or at least help me clarify for myself the type of things I need to do next year.
- Use the knowledge and tools I have
- Acquire new tools
- Share my knowledge with others
- Acquire new knowledge
Number 1 is just doing regular work like migrations, creating new databases, solving problems. Sure, you might learn a little or make a little script here or there, but this is mainly just taking what you already have and applying it.
Number 2 means preparing for future work by getting new tools in place that will help you be more efficient. This could be designing a script or scripts that you write yourself from scratch. It could be downloading a free script or program. It could be evaluating and purchasing a new program or online service.
Number 3 includes mentoring other DBA’s and developers, giving talks, making documentation – any kind of output of my existing Oracle database knowledge to make others more effective.
Number 4 refers to any kind of intake of new Oracle database knowledge. Can be reading books, online articles, Oracle support notes, manuals. Can also be research. Research can include writing scripts but usually they are test scripts to prove that something is true and not reusable tools.
I guess you really can’t completely separate these four types of activity. Often you have to stop working on something to build a little tool, or to read an article. But, maybe it is helpful to break up the work in my mind into these four logical categories or dimensions of DBA activity.
– Bobby
P.S. I’m dropping a table with tens of thousands of subpartitions and it is taking forever. So, that’s why I had time to write this post now.
P.P.S. Finally finished:
Table dropped. Elapsed: 00:37:45.15
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