izzyAs a parent of two soon-to-be-asking-for-the-car-keys tweens, I came across this post the other day and found it struck a chord with me. I’ve gotten the eye-rolls from my daughter for everything on that list by now. My son is younger but I am certain he will also hit a point where everything on that list will earn his scorn as well.

After some thought I realized that the items on that list are not only applicable to tweens, they apply to DBAs also. And with a few modifications we can have our own list of phrases that will often result in eye-rolls, grimaces, and general grunting from your DBA.

So, here’s my list of 42 things you should never, ever say to your DBA.

As always, you’re welcome.

  1. How was the status meeting?
  2. What’s wrong?
  3. How much longer?
  4. Are you in a bad mood?
  5. Hi.
  6. You can’t possibly still be hungry.
  7. Why are you doing that?
  8. But I read on a blog that this would work.
  9. Where are you?
  10. Where were you?
  11. Where are you going?
  12. But…
  13. Hello.
  14. Want some help?
  15. Do you know how we do that in MS Access?
  16. I knew that would work.
  17. Are you tired?
  18. Can you set all the passwords to be the same?
  19. I did that as a junior DBA once.
  20. Will you be late with your weekly status report?
  21. Go say “hi” to the developers.
  22. Can you give me a quick download of the customer database?
  23. Why won’t you tell me what you did?
  24. Smile! You’re prettier when you smile.
  25. Can I go with you to the datacenter?
  26. It’s cool, it worked fine in dev.
  27. Are you done yet?
  28. You know you have to wear pants tomorrow, right?
  29. How many rows fit in the product table?
  30. I need you to restore this one row.
  31. Do you know the syntax for restoring a database?
  32. Can you email me the SA password?
  33. Do you know where we keep the backups?
  34. Why are you always so grumpy?
  35. Do you always say “No”?
  36. That’s not agile.
  37. There’s no more bacon.
  38. I got an error. Can you help?
  39. Why don’t you just do what the developer is telling you to do?
  40. Do you know who I am?
  41. There’s this NOLOCK trick I heard about.
  42. Good news. We found 5 really cheap DBAs to help you out.

Now I’m thinking we need a similar list for developers, architects, and sys admins. It seems my work is never done!