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Skills, Your Job, Staying Current…
(No April fools here – just wanted to keep the conversation going)
Elizabeth writes with a slightly different slant on things: "Make the sacrifice and do it for now. Employers are struggling and they really can’t help. When better times arrive, your employer may improve your pay and working conditions. If not, use your skills update to find another job or start your consulting career."
…and Jeremy chimes in with a similar thought – "I don’t have the “luxury” of being denied training from my employer since I’m self-employed, however I do have similar challenges as Ralph. Since I’m self-employed, if I’m not doing billable work, I don’t make any dough. I used to find myself putting off learning new things in order to bill a few extra hours. However, when SQL 2005 came out, I had to change my way of thinking, radically. In order to stay up to date and current, I’ve used my computer at home or my laptop as my learning environment. I can often be found working through lunch on the newest technology (right now that’s SSDS). I’ll load up the newest O/S or SQL Server version on a VM and go hog wild with creating databases, migrating them from 05 to 08 or learning about the new data types or the new threading model in 08 etc… Does this take some time to set up? You bet. I went out and purchased 3 external usb attached hard drives that I built VM’s on (took me a full weekend). Once that is done though, I have a lot of different environments that are portable. I can use that to help advance my clients database systems or I can use it to learn and increase my knowledge base.
Changing gears… over the last year I have made it a point to never open my laptop at home. This means that I’m spending about 1 hour longer at a client site every day. On the average day, I’ll leave my house at 6AM and return at 6PM. Often times I spend this extra hour or so learning about what’s new or reading blog posts. The point of it is that when I shut my computer down for the day, it’s off. I can then spend a lot of quality time at home pursuing my passion(s), family and golfing.
Another fantastic way to get exposure to the new things coming up is to start a blog or write articles. This is something that your employer will likely give you some cycles for. The reason that they will do this, is that if you are interested in advancing your skill set, it will benefit your employer and if you are doing it for the purposes of being published then they know it’s not “goofing off” time, but time that’s well spent learning, researching, developing and testing. At the end of the day it’s a win-win scenario.
So, at your next review or if you can just mention this to your boss, I’d say go for it. I’ve not yet met a database manager or a development manager who will shut that door in your face if you approach it with your companies best interest in mind."
Great feedback all the way around. Have a great April Fool’s day – may you escape without bruises and viruses.
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