Tag Archives for new job

The Amazing Shrinking SQL Transaction Logs

There’s nothing glamorous about “Low Disk Space” errors.

For some reason the maintenance plan for one of the test db servers wasn’t current. Test servers don’t get monitoring like the production servers, so I’m glad I was checking in. I got to spend about an hour reading up on logs, logical and actual sizes, shrinking, and got in some “wax on, wax off” style practice going through all of our QA and Training dbs.

I also got a release candidate from a vendor that needs to be tested. There’s a limited number of test servers I have access to, but I got it to install and successfully work on a test server also running a previous version. It took a little imagineering, but I installed it, restored a QA database for RC testing [now with lots of space for more transaction logs], upgraded the db to the RC version, and successfully logged in with the new client. All on the first try.

What I’m most satisfied with is that I was able to keep momentum on this task [6 hours thus far] over the course of a Friday & Monday. Friday was also the first workday of 2009. We had a couple of sites close, a few change Third Party plans, some more converted platforms, and one got re-branded entirely. And there are always those pesky bugs that tend to appear at the first of the year. It was enough to fill my day, but I kept plugging along on this release candidate install and if I had let the incidents on Friday utterly consume my day, I couldn’t have made so much progress today. This GTD methodology has something to it.

Let the testing begin.

Working Sick

For about 10 days I’ve been fighting off a cold bug. It’s that headache, nagging cough, and “overall sense of lethargy.” I’m not contagious and only a little miserable, but after work today I don’t feel the least amount of self-pity. Laryngitis, bronchitis, sinus infection, & apparently even chicken pox are floating around amongst the coworkers.

I’m just thankful it’s not floating around in the office. Stay home, get better, and get the new guy to take on your deliverables. Luckily I spent a couple hours on Friday properly archiving my email and creating subfolders in my inbox for my action items, someday items, and urgent-unimportant issues. I feel that I’ve always been natually good at staying on task and following up on issues, but getting into a GTD mindset helps reinforce good habits. Because you never know when you might come down with a sinus infection and have to tell your manager what you’re working on. Or when you need to tell the new guy exactly what he has to cover while you’re out of the office unexpectedly. With chicken pox. Get well soon.

First week in a new job

Boy has it been a busy one.

  • Had my first call with our credit card processing vendor’s Technical Support. Also had my second and third calls this week too. The last rep I spoke to was Tom who offered to put together a workflow and walk me through the entire process of the credit card thigh bone is connected to the merchant bank  hip bone (so to speak), so I’ll schedule a call with him next week.
  • Fixed a lingering issue where TIF files lost their file association, so when trying to view an attachment from the web app, you have to Save and Open With. Ended up modifying a few registry keys and pushed that out to about 5 machines.
  • Setup a Webex for another vendor’s offshore programmers to troubleshoot an error message on a daily report. The offshore programmer was working slowly enough that I was able to watch him work and pick up on a few things. Turns out some stored procedures from a previous version needed to be updated. They’ve delivered the script that they tested and I’ll test that out on Monday. If it works, we’ll schedule it for production.
  • Had my first conversation with my old boss as his collegue, not just his direct report. We talked about persistent support issues, the upcoming company-wide Holiday party, and the SEC Championship game. Personally, I’m looking forward to the Holiday IT Pot Luck Breakfast more anyway.

The transition from Helpdesk to Implementations has been very smooth. It’s even been a great opportunity for the two new Support guys to step up and fill the void I created when I “jumped off a cliff” and joined the Implementations team.

The good news is that before my new boss hired me, she and I had a very open and honest conversation about what I didn’t know and what I didn’t have experience in. Not living up to expectations is what haunted my predecessor. I guess what’s worse: bad news or suprise bad news? Working in my favor is that I’ve been with the company for 2.5 years, I’m a known commodity, and proven that I’m a fast learner. Three years ago I was working for a dot com earning a sales commission every month. Two years from now I could probably get a job as a Database Administrator. Not a bad career path so far.

I’m waiting for the day when I’m asked to tackle something that is completely and entirely out of my league and everyone “finds me out”. It didn’t happen this week. My biggest concern is next week. I hope nobody “finds me out”.