The Best Career Advice (2023-06-24 DBW)

The Best Career Advice

I don't know that I have the best advice, but this month's T-SQL Tuesday is asking for people to share what they think is the best advice they've been given or have for you. I wrote my own piece, where I noted that learning to say "No" was one of the best things I've ever done. Not that I say no to everything, but I do default to no, especially when someone asks for me to tackle something new.

Actually, it's slightly more nuanced than that. As I've gotten used to my workload, I will say yes to things, and certainly, I'm more likely to commit to one-off things. It's the longer-term, larger things that I don't want to agree to do unless I'm sure I can deliver.

There are lots of other things people wrote. Deb said that you should trust your instincts and realize you can contribute, even if you're new. Hugo notes the user is often right. Mala is more cautious with work and practices discretion. Rob got the advice to take it slow, learn his job, and figure out what he likes and doesn't.

There are lots of other advice, from Pragati telling you to get a mentor to Mikey saying you should find a job you love. If you check out the comments in the invitation above, you'll see plenty more responses, many with interesting back stories and more details. If you only read through one set of T-SQL Tuesday responses, this might be the one to pick.

I'm a big fan of actively managing your career. Make the decisions that move in the direction that matters to you. As noted in a few posts, we spend a lot of our lives at work. At times more than we spend with family, so be sure you have a career you enjoy.

This takes work, but it's an investment that can repay itself over many years. Both in financial rewards and less stress on a regular basis. Every job is a job some days, but when you enjoy your work, it doesn't feel like work.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums

One of the new Extended Event available in SQL Server 2022 is the query_antipattern. This extended event allows to identify anti-patterns on the SQL queries sent to the server. An anti-pattern in this case is some code that the SQL Server optimizer can’t do a great job optimizing the code (but cannot correct the issue automatically).

A student of mine sent me a T-SQL challenge involving gap-filling of missing dates and balances. I found the challenge interesting and common enough and figured that my readers would probably find it interesting to work on as well. I’ll present the challenge and three possible solutions, as well as the results of a performance test. AS always, I urge you to try and come up with your own solutions before looking at mine.

This article demonstrates how to use PowerShell to fetch your login credentials from Windows Credential Manager and pipe them securely to Flyway without ever saving them in any form, such as in a file or environment variable.

Automated machine learning (AutoML) is a set of to...

This is today’s edition of The Download, our w...

Sid, also known as @immasiddtweets on Twitter, use...

In this short post we look at the ability to be ab...

Statistics are vitally important in allowing SQL S...

Microsoft.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.Check...

Earlier this week, I wrote a few blog posts on SQL Server Deadlocks. Lots of people asked me if I could convert them into Interview Questions and Answers First appeared...

sp_WhoIsActive: Advanced Logging To Tables Going F...

Analyzing a support case that our customer got the following error faced: "Unable to load adalsql.dll (Authentication=ActiveDirectoryPassword). Error code: 0x2" using an older application to the Azure SQL database....

Today, we encountered an interesting case while obtaining the Azure Active Directory token using ActiveDirectoryPassword authentication using the latest version of MSAL in Java. Finally, the issue was resolved...

This article explains what Snowflake data warehous...

With the new system stored procedure sp_invoke_ext...

Rie Merritt breaks out the toolbox: Azure SQL Mana...

When you run SQL Servers on-premises, you own the ...

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Gethyn E...

I have been absurdly lucky to be around so many am...

It’s that time of month again! Or rather, it’s...

It’s time for our monthly blog party and thanks ...

As a Talent Acquisition Coordinator at Redgate, I ...

Happy T-SQL Tuesday! I feel bad that I’ve missed that last several but I’m glad I’m able to jump back in. Thanks to Gethyn Ellis ( t | b...

At AWS re:Invent 2022, Adam Selipsky, CEO of AWS, explained high performance computing (HPC) workloads typically can either be compute-intensive, compute- and networking-intensive, or data- and memory-intensive in his...

In this post we will see how to recursively delete files/objects, folders and bucket from S3. Recursively deleting a folder in S3 rm –recursive followed by […] The post How...

Santosh Hari looks at the options: Azure docs have...

Is your team looking to modernize and migrate your data but have questions about the complex organizational challenges? This webinar panel on June 29th covers all aspects of data modernization and migration that senior IT leaders should be aware of, including organization culture, communication, and politics. Why not send it to your boss?

Your first speakers in the line up for PASS Data Community Summit 2023 have been announced! Check out the full details for this year's Pre-Cons and Learning Pathways, and find out why some of our speakers are particularly excited for what’s in store this year.

PowerShell can be used to detect changes in group ...

Brien Posey provides a tutorial for downloading fi...

Have you ever heard the saying, “A picture is wo...

(for your reading pleasure, written by Jules. –e...

Andy Kirk has a catalog: My long-running catalogue...

SAS' Phuong Ngo demonstrates an automated shift-le...

This week I had the chance to deliver a talk at Ag...

I recently posted on LinkedIn that I was interview...

This post is part of a short series on Azure Data Factory pipeline return value functionality, which is in preview at the time of this writing. The Problem I...

Today, we encountered an interesting service reque...

Export table contents to a CSV file from SQL Server It may be useful to export a tables contents to a CSV file for some exploratory analysis, to feed...

Argonne National Laboratory and Intel said on Thur...

Seagate's FireCuda 540 set to hit 10 GB/s, accordi...

Putting together your own desktop should save you money and help you take control of your tech life.

Hardware leaker shares the alleged launch dates fo...

Motherboard vendors are readying their 700-series ...

RANK is a new DAX function to rank items based on ...

You've got your data into OneLake and a Lakehouse,...

Synapse Analytics is an enterprise analytics engine that offers multiple (compute) Pool types that you can use for varying data processing and analytics requirements. Each Pool type has a...

One of the objects in the Microsoft Fabric is the Notebook. If you haven’t worked with Azure Notebooks before, you might ask yourself; what is Notebook? Why should I...

I blogged about Microsoft Fabric a few weeks ago, and wanted to follow up with an introduction video that covers the basics so hopefully you will understand the major... The...

Microsoft says that the File Explorer bug can caus...

Microsoft announced its very own roadmap towards b...

Wait statistics, in the context of SQL Server, ref...

Hugo Kornelis looks at the execution plan: Welcome...

In the past 1.5 years we in the SQL Server CSS and content teams have been working on creating new documentation to assist with troubleshooting SQL Server slow performance issues. Here is a list of articles that were produced over this period. Hope you find these useful. Please share with others and don’t hesitate to provide feedback at the bottom of each article page by clicking on “Was this page helpful?”.

Welcome to this introductory blog post on SQL Server Deadlocks. In this post, we'll help you understand what deadlocks are, and how they occur. First appeared on Understanding SQL Server...

sp_WhoIsActive: Getting Memory Grant Details Going Further If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount...

DESCRIPTION In recent years, data-driven decis...

DYNAMIC format strings recently were made availabl...

Leila Etaati shows off some new functionality: One...

Why the "visual has exceeded available resources" error occurs in Power BI Desktop and what you can do about it The post The “Visual Has Exceeded The Available Resources” Error...

The enterprise Business Intelligence and IT community have been anxiously awaiting this capability for many years and it has finally arrived - at least in Preview form for testing...

There is a common way of seeing data in Excel as a Matrix format; many data entries look like a matrix in many contexts, from accounting to health data....

This article demonstrates how to run a preliminary check that issues a warning, or throws an error, if the conditions aren't met for a Flyway migration to succeed. It...

This one’s a pretty quiet release: just bug fixe...

Now generally available: managed ingestion from Azure Cosmos DB to Azure Data Explorer in near real time.

Today I have release the June 2023 update of Database Health Monitor version 1018. The big focus on this update was the wait time involved in reconnecting to SQL...

Writing to and reading from text files and pickle ...

Steven Sanderson gathers a sample: Sampling is a f...

As a programmer, it’s crucial to have a deep understanding of the tools at your disposal. In the realm of data analysis and manipulation, R stands as a powerhouse. One function that proves to be invaluable in many scenarios is diff(). In this blog post, we will explore the ins and outs of the diff() function, showcasing its functionality and providing you with practical examples to enhance your programming skills.

Changing the password of SQL Logins in Azure SQL D...

Issue Analyzing one of the cases in which we encountered an error using Azure Active Directory with Password Authentication, I would like to share the lessons learned during this process,...

A severe security vulnerability allows credentials...

The "nOAuth" attack allows cross-platform spoofing...

From hardening Windows systems to adding access co...

This is a clever new side-channel attack: The first attack uses an Internet-connected surveillance camera to take a high-speed video of the power LED on a smart card reader­—or of...

There are countless queries you can find on intern...

Robert Cain combines some tables: In today’s pos...

THE VIDEO THE SYNOPSIS In this video, we will look...

Thom Andrews solves a problem: Notice that the err...

Fun With KQL - Union

I start today’s Office Hours by playing with the...

This is the final post in a series covering changes in SSMS 19. Please review Part 1 and Part 2 for details about Microsoft.Data.Sqlclient, MSAL, removal of the SQL...