Log Backup Failing–A Simple Mistake

Last week I was checking on some stuff and noticed that a couple databases were in simple mode – unusual, but not necessarily wrong, so I asked someone on the team that manages the environment about it. He said that because of the usage it wasn’t critical but they did prefer them to be set […]

Celebrating Mistakes-Part 2

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It’s easy to say we want to take risks, much harder to set the boundaries so that you demand diligence. Taking risks shouldn’t be on the level of buying lotto tickets or a roll of the dice. It’s got to be a shared risk, one that you may […]

Celebrating Mistakes-Part 1

Most of us learn more from mistakes than successes. We talk about taking risks, but what is the average response when you fail – not good, is it? We’re not trying to fail, to make mistakes, to disappoint the boss. Does intent matter? Sometimes. There are mistakes and then, there are, mistakes. You can’t have […]

Life Lesson: Pay Your Dues

This is one of the lessons you don’t want to hear when you’re 18, or the newest member of a team stuck with all the miserable tasks, but it is, for me, one of the more simple truths in life. I’ve watched a lot of people spend time trying to avoid paying their dues, and […]

Rules to Live By: Be Worthy of Trust

I struggled with the title for this one. One of the thoughts I had was that I believe in being a man of my word. If I can say I’m going to do something, I most likely will, and if I shake hands on it, for me that’s as binding as any contract I’ll ever […]

Rules to Live By: Do the Hard Things First

I can’t say I stick to this one 100 percent of the time, but it’s definitely a deeply held belief. Given two tasks, I prefer to do the one that sucks first. It’s easy to do the fun one, spend time on stuff that is fun but doesn’t really matter, and then wind up way […]

Rules to Live By – The Intro

Most of us have some general rules we live by, and I’ve often thought it would be a lot easier to get along with people if we had them printed and shared with everyone we met! I think we could do worse than to just live by the Golden Rule, but in real life it’s […]