Watch for announcements about WIT’s 2022 plans in the December newsletter.
PASS Data Community Summit was held in mid-November. Thanks to all the speakers, sponsors, and
volunteers for making this a wonderful event. The proceeds for two of the pre-cons were donated to
charity. Redgate’s pre-con raised $8000 for Black Girls Code!
EIGHTKB is looking for speakers to talk about internals. If you are interested, please reach out to them
info@eighkb.online.
Each month, we feature a blogger, and this month it is Alpa Buddhabhatti. Alpa is a Microsoft Certified
Trainer and an Azure Consultant at Cluster Reply UK.
Please reach out by sending a message to dataplatformwit@gmail.com if you have a blog or
speaking event you would like for us to feature in the newsletter or if you would like to be
interviewed.
Want to keep up with the group? You can also find us on Twitter @data_wit, Facebook, meetup,
YouTube, and LinkedIn.
–Mala and Kathi
Always Connected to Work
We just had our big Thanksgiving holiday in the US. It’s supposed to be a day we spend with family,
eating way too much, and watching a parade or football game. Of course, being thankful for the good
things in our lives is part of that day, too. This year, when thinking about Thanksgiving, I tried to list the
people who have jobs where they are expected to be at work instead of with their families. This list
included first responders, caregivers and staff at hospitals and nursing homes, military men and women,
and so many more. Unfortunately, it’s become common to begin Black Friday (the official start of
Christmas shopping) on Thanksgiving Day. Many people working in retail stores had to miss out on
family dinners so that others could shop for bargains. Many of this newsletter’s readers, especially the
DBAs, may have had the day off but had to be on-call and available just in case of unexpected
performance, security or other server issues. It’s also possible that some companies took advantage of
the long holiday weekend to roll out a software upgrade that involved your expertise. For many of you,
it’s difficult to ever truly be away from work. And, family responsibilities make things even harder when
on call or doing weekend project work. I am truly fortunate at this point in my career. I am now an
editor, responsible for working with authors, editing articles, and producing a newsletter every two
weeks. I no longer worry about getting a frantic phone call about a server being down or a performance
problem. I can step away and completely forget about my job. Of course, it hasn’t always been this way
for me. I remember so many times that I had to connect to the company network for planned or
unplanned work because I was the “one” DBA in a 1.3 DBA team. Looking back, I realize that it was a
great job, and most of the time I wasn’t called and could enjoy my time off. I’m happy I had that
experience and that I did make a difference for the firm. But, now that I’ve paid my dues, I’m going to
enjoy forgetting about my job when I’m off work from now on.
–Kathi
