DBA Thanksgiving

Last month I went to visit some friends in Montreal. It just so happened to be the weekend right before the Thanksgiving holiday in Canada. While there we happened to meet some new people, which is always nice while traveling. During the discussions with our new friends we came about the topic of Thanksgiving, how it is different in other parts of the world, and what it meant for a variety of people, past and present.

One thing that was clear was that many cultures all have some type of ceremonial dinner around the time of year associated with the harvest. Why? Well, most society and cultures were agricultural in nature, so this made sense to have a celebration I suppose. But one gentlemen described it in a way that made it even more clear.

“You see,” he started, “most people were farmers. If you know of a farmer, or have been a farmer, you know how hard of a life that can be. Imagine if you spent all year working your crops in order to have enough food to last the winter. Now imagine if you lost most of your crops to drought, disease, or something else. Such disasters were fairly common. So at the end of the year, if you had something to show for all your effort, then you were truly thankful for what you had on your plate.”

Now, I am paraphrasing there, but I think you get the point. And if you saw all his hand gestures while he spoke then his point would certainly be more clear. Most of us have no concept of what it is like to live in an agrarian society or culture. So we talk about being thankful for things, and I believe that we are to some degree. But I do not believe that we are thankful for things that truly matter to our very survival; we are thankful for things because we believe it is the right thing to do, not because we may die as a result of going without them.

So, I started thinking about my own profession, and the things in that profession that affect my life and that I am thankful for. Such is the idea behind a DBA Thanksgiving. I think we should all spend some time reflecting upon the things that we are thankful for as a DBA. And no, none of these are a matter of life and death, but some would decide whether or not I would keep my job.

So, what are the things I am thankful for as a DBA?

• not having to restore master
• backups that succeed
• updated stats
• OpsMgr (ok, maybe just me, so let’s say app/event logs instead)
• PASS and my network of colleagues
• Twitter
• being able to remote into the office from home
• not having to deal with corrupted databases
• having AC in the office in summer and heat in the winter
• having a smoke free workplace
• being free to eat bacon
• premiere support from MSFT
• Bing (yeah, and Google)
• not having to worry about losing a finger while working
• coffee
• for people that value my work and efforts
• for the opportunity to create something at the end of the day you know will help others

Feel free to leave anything else you think DBA’s should be thankful for in the comments below or over at my Fanpage in this discussion thread.

And I shall end with a picture of a most wonderful creation: the turbaconducken.

http://bacontoday.com/turbaconducken-turducken-wrapped-in-bacon/

Happy Thanksgiving!