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| | | Lessons for all of us I write a fair amount about career issues. It's one of the largest tags in my word cloud, and I'm proud of that. I've seen too many people in bad jobs for too long, had a few myself, watched my wife work far too hard at times, and lost friends because of a lack of time. All of those experiences have caused me to really think hard about life and how I approach work. Don't get me wrong. I like work, I enjoy what I do, I have a great time writing code and queries and think technology is a great career choice. That being said, it can be a hard job. There are demands to work long hours and holidays, often to deploy changes when the workload is low. Some years, I've worked as many holidays and weekends in this business as I used to when working in restaurants. That being said, we often think of this as an "easy" job in many ways. We work in offices. We're well compensated. We don't have a lot of physical demands, and we can do this job will into our later years if we choose. If you've ever worked in a job that requires more physical effort such as construction, you appreciate the ease with which our days pass. If you've ever had a boring job, such as staring at the x-ray screen in airport security, you'll likewise realize most of us are lucky that we get to exercise our brains. That doesn't mean this job isn't hard. In fact, burnout and high stress are real problems in technology. While some industries might worry about their people getting enough done when working remote, our industry has too many people that don't know how to stop working. I thought about this as I was reading a post on burnout and looking out for yourself. Many of us that work in technology are too sedentary. We sit at desks, we work odd hours and often subsist on poor diets that we've built during a lifetime of late night coding sessions. We also accept more blame, demands, stress, and accountability than we should. While I don't know too many people that have had serious health issues from this work, I do know a few. I also know far too many people that have passed away before they reached 50. The downsides of this work can creep up on you. I know I felt a little burned out last year, from too much travel, too many balls being juggled, too much pressure. I made a conscious effort to slow things down and I'm much happier this year. I try to exercise and eat (slightly) better on a regular basis, balancing that out as best I can. We work to live, not the other way around. Whether you need fewer responsibilities, more exercise, new hobbies, better connections with friends and family, strong mental health care, or something else, make sure you take care of yourself in this life. It's the only one you get. Steve Jones from SQLServerCentral.comJoin the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums |
| The Voice of the DBA Podcast Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 4.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and Libsyn.  The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. |
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 | Join Redgate’s livestream on June 20 and learn from Microsoft Data Platform MVPs, Steve Jones, Grant Fritchey, and Kathi Kellenberger. The schedule will include sessions to help you learn how to demonstrate compliance with regulations such as the GDPR, HIPAA and SOX. Find out more and register for free More » |
 | Additional Articles from MSSQLTips.com Do you know when a SQL Server instance restarts? When you manage many SQL Server instances you may not know when one restarts, so having an automated report emailed to you could be helpful to get an idea what's going on for that instance. More » |
| | Looking to DevOps automation to try to create the breathing room needed to break out of the vicious cycle of technical debt. More » |
 | DataOnWheels from SQLServerCentral Blogs Cosmos DB is one of the fastest growing Azure services in 2018. As its popularity grows, data professionals are faced... More » |
| | Daniel Janik from SQLServerCentral Blogs Understanding the fundamentals is key for success, with everything you do. These days SQL Server has expanded into much more... More » |
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| | | Today's Question (by Steve Jones): Which languages can be used with Machine Learning Services in SQL Server 2017? |
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| | Yesterday's Question of the Day |
| Yesterday's Question (by Steve Jones): I build this function that takes multiple parameters. def AwardRibbons(first, second, third, fourth): print("Thanks for participating", fourth) print("The bronze goes to ", third) print("The silver goes to ", second) print("The gold goes to ", first) When I decide to call this, I include parameters, but some I name and some I do not. What is the order that I must follow for the parameters in my function call?
Answer: All positional arguments come first, then named arguments Explanation: In Python, positional arguments must be passed in first, and then named arguments can be passed in. If there are default values, then the arguments need not be included. If all arguments are named, they can be passed in any order. This is valid: AwardRibbons("USA", "Canada", "Germany", "Austria") As is this: AwardRibbons(third="USA", first="Canada", fourth="Germany", second="Austria") And this: AwardRibbons("USA", "Canada", fourth="Germany", third="Austria") This is not AwardRibbons(third="USA", "Canada", fourth="Germany", first="Austria") Ref: Fun with Python Function Parameters - click here
» Discuss this question and answer on the forums |
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