Geeks need apply...
I thought this article got most of it right...
But, I also thought they missed the most important item.
- Give them useful, meaningful, important things to do
I hated writing shelf-ware in a former life. Nothing was worse then working on a project you knew no one would probably use. I would rather work on a small, no fame/no glory project - that would get used; way before I worked on something big, huge, but useless.
Give me something meaningful - that is perhaps the most important thing.
More than their 8, but their 8 are important too mostly.....
posted by Thomas Kyte at 8:57 PM
14 Comments:
#1 -- I had a boss who insisted that I be on site during business hours. Nevermind the fact that I was the production DBA and did most of my work off-hours so as not to disturb production. They needed "face time". As if actually seeing me meant the work was getting done.
#2 -- And then there was the boss who insisted I couldn't telecommute when things had to be done in the middle of the night..... okay, that production problem will just take at least 90 minutes longer to solve as I have to get up, get dressed and get into the office.
Sheesh!
But I like your addition. That was always the most important thing to me, in any job. I want to feel USEFUL
Yes! I want to feel useful! There's nothing worse than spending months working on a project, talking with users, spec'ing, developing, testing, and deploying something...only to find no-one's using it.
#8 Do not make them do anything other than work
so true. My most frustrating experience was being black-listed by a customer for not having put the screwdriver at the right place when my job should have been to create the database.
#5. Do not expect them to wear a suit
I agree, but I'm not sure they have the reason right ("Geeks find arbitrary activities that lack real and meaningful purpose a waste of time and energy.") I quite like wearing a suit for short periods, but after a while it starts to make me feel like a corporate drone, and programming is a creative activity. Graphic designers, illustrators, musicians, writers don't tend to wear suits.
I'm not sure they have the reason right
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes the graphic designers et al are the worst of the fashionista nazis.
I worked for one startup where all the geeks wore shorts and t-shirts. The owner literally was the janitor. They laughed at the people with masters degrees that would come through and try to sell them something wearing suits. They laughed at the competition that would have "no-tie Fridays" (and have wear-a-tie-with-Bloom-County-t-shirt Fridays). They'd kick us out at 7PM so we wouldn't burn ourselves out. Best dang job I ever had. Too bad they changed direction away from what I do when better business opportunities arose. I guess it's good they don't have to look at my knees 20 years on... :-)
But still, there is opportunity where places don't realize the truth of the Nomadishere post. Between rationalization and the modifications you can make to your local environment, there doesn't have to be a need to reject crappy environs. They can't read your mind yet. More scarcity and less competition means more dollars. And if it becomes intolerable, you can find something better.
My boss calls me a geek - I think what he means is I get things done. I've been teaching him keyboard shortcuts for years, but does he listen?
I would add to your #9: "...and include them in determining what's useful, meaningful, and important."
I have always found that the smart person who can do the work has the best input into what the work should be. It also prevents miscommunication over what's meaningful.
Add "include the geek in the technical decisions" to the list!!
I would rather work on a small, no fame/no glory project - that would get used; way before I worked on something big, huge, but useless.
No kidding, except, as I've found most times those "simple" often used pieces of software become integral to how a business works or operates.
Also, once you do something simple, people often come back with "can yo u add this, what about that?" and before you know it, its much bigger thing than you started (but has the benefit of going through scope for each small piece and growing more logically).
Tracy Kidder's "The Soul of a New Machine" follows the development of Data General's Eagle machine. Great writing and insight into how Engineers are motivated. (eg see their hard work in action)
michael a. rife is onto something. I'm 100% tired of my (DBA) opinion being asked, only to have said opinion thrown into the dustbin. I'm the only "database guy" in an organization of 40+ people working on three different product lines. For a performance-critical demo with a HUGE potential customer, involving a copy of 600+ MB of data within the database (plus redo/undo and index modifications, since nothing could be offlined), I told the boss that the 3- and 4-CPU machines with a single disk each being offered was insufficient.
Boss didn't talk to me for 10 weeks. (No email, no returned phone calls, nothing. I marked it on my calendar.) I don't even know how the demo went, after some of the other guys installed Oracle on one of the aforementioned servers in prepration.
Yeah, morale ain't so hot around here.
The article, of course, is absolutely 100% correct. I would love to work in a workplace which satisfied all of these requirements.
Unfortunately, the article is also absolute, 100% wishful thinking. The dot-com days are long gone, management is no longer bowing to their geek overlords' every wish.
And why would they? We are after all just another cog in the corporate machine. Is it MORE important to keep us happy than any other employee? That seems a bit arrogant to me. There's probably plenty of staff around who would like things to be different.
Keeping the tech staff "working happily" has not been a priority anywhere I have worked, most managers have their own gripes and concerns, the last thing they are worried about is whether or not the hairy guys down the hall with the odd sense of humour have enough lava lamps and caffeinated drinks around to keep them happy.
Of course, we can always dream...
Well first of all meaning of all three words from "define: * in Google"
Intelligent: having the capacity for thought and reason especially to a high degree
Geek: In computers and the Internet, a geekis a person who is inordinately dedicated to and involved with the technologyto the point of sometimes not appearing to be like the rest of us (non-geeks).Being a geek also implies a capability with the technology.
Nerd: A computer expert by aptitude and not mere training. Usually male, under the age of 35 and socially inept; a person whose tremendous skill with operating or designing computer hardware or software is exceeded only by his, rarely her, passionate love of the technology.
So all the three words refer to some exceptional class of people, not everybody ;) Here are my views about all the points:
1 Yes flexible timings are a big thing. Different classes of people are there. One that can work in morning, another late night so and so and one that can't anytime (but this article is not for those ;)
2 Yes everybody likes different kind of environment around. I like greenry and natural things, if possible :) & the nap thing I strongly agree to ;)
3 Except while sleeping and listening to some classical genre of music, I need light :)
4 Nice idea. & I ALMOST HATE those people talking on the phone everytime, specially sales people & managers.
5 Yes. No suits and formals. It is upto you whatever you like. Reid & Taylor Suits are ok for James Bond in 007 series but are not going to help in bringing up a server from crash or catching an exception that has propagated to 5th-6th calling program because somebody didn't handle it at proper place earlier :)
6 Not a big issue. Just need the company of like minded people and it is fine :)
7 Yes. No meetings just for the sake of meetings. We need work not meetings.
8 It hurts the soul.
Cheers !
Sidhu
http://amardeepsidhu.blogspot.com
Hi tom,
I have gone thr the queries that u have given for comparing content of two tables with same structure .. But all that somehow doesn solve my purpose.
i want to write a procedure which takes the tablename,colnames(which are to be compared) and the business keys from the user
i am not really able to come up with this
Just writing an algo of wat i want
Create or replace procedure data_compare(tabname In varchar2, Colname In Varcha2,Business Keys In VArchar2)
IS
BEGIN
1) Do a record matching analysis
Find the no of records matching based on Business keys
that ll be done by putting a join some wat like this
select a.col2,a.col3 from testa a inner join proda b on a.col2=b.col2 and a.col3=b.col3
2) & 3) the records present in one prod not in test and vice versa can be found out using
select col2,col3,'Test' as TABLENAME from ((select col2,col3 from testa minus (select l.col2,l.col3 from testa l, proda r where l.col2 = r.col2 or l.col3 = r.col3)))
UNION
select col2,col3,'Prod' as TABLENAME from((select col2,col3 from proda minus (select r.col2,r.col3 from testa l, proda r where l.col2 = r.col2 or l.col3 = r.col3)))
4)find the records present in both but different
select col2,col3,'Test' as TABLENAME from
((select l.col2,l.col3 from testa l, proda r where l.col2 = r.col2 or l.col3 = r.col3) minus
(select l.col2,l.col3 from testa l, Proda r where l.col2=r.col2 and l.col3=r.col3))
union
select col2,col3,'Prod' as TABLENAME from
((select r.col2,r.col3 from testa l, proda r where l.col2 = r.col2 or l.col3 = r.col3) minus
(select r.col2,r.col3 from testa l, Proda r where l.col2=r.col2 and l.col3=r.col3))
after this i want to perform an analysis of the matching records on the non keys
that can be done by a join on all attributes.
select a.col2,a.col3,decode(a.col4,b.col4,'Match','DataMismatch') col4,
decode(a.col5,b.col5,'Match','DataMismatch') col5,
decode(a.col6,b.col6,'Match','DataMismatch') col6,
decode(a.col7,b.col7,'Match','DataMismatch') col7
from testa a inner join
proda b on a.col2=b.col2 and a.col3=b.col3
end of algo
I am not sure how will i take the colnames as input and how will i form the dynamic query .. forming queries specific to a table can be done but am not not able to come up with something dynamic and generic. Please help me wit this
my email id is khushbu.bhalla@gmail.com. If u can post me the hlep it wud be raelly helpful
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