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[Humor] How to decode an Oracle DBA Want-Ad

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Joel Garry

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Mar 31, 2002, 11:38:05 AM3/31/02
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When one peruses the want-ads, it is easy to think they are straightforward
requests for given skillsets. The sad truth is, they are out of context of
the situation they refer to. However, one may read between the lines to
get a realistic set of expectations. Most jobs wind up different than
their descriptions anyways. So here is what they say, and what it may
really mean:

OCP certification required: Oracle Consulting marketing ploy backfired.

RMAN required: They couldn't understand Velpuri.

High Availability and RMAN required: They have a big old obsolete Sun
box, and insufficient budget for for a 7/24 shop, so they hired someone
with NT Oracle experience who screwed up big time, so you have to clean it up.

NT and backup experience required: Last guy didn't know NT idiosyncracies
or RMAN bugs.

Tape backup experience required: Those DLT's got another one.

Cabling experience preferred: You will wear a lot of hats, and none will
say "DBA."

Good communication skills required: Previous DBA had a gambling problem.

Must have very good communication skills: Management expectations need
adjustment.

Must have excellent communication skills: Previous DBA was inscrutable.

Must have premier communications skills: It's a sales job.

Must be a star at communicating: Previous DBA on trial in criminal court.

Will not sponsor H1-B: [Answer under review by Political Correctness
Department]

Applicant will be expected to wear a pager: Their firewall product doesn't
play well with Oracle; their firewall is full of holes from previous DBA's
hacks.

VSAM, CICS, Forms 6.0, Perl, and COBOL: HR department being used to screen
out all applicants so project lead's nephew 's half-brother's wife's cousin
can get a government job.

FORMS, PREL, SQL, Dba: HR department clueless, non-communicative IS
manager not helping matters any.

4 years 9iAS experience required: Headhunter having a waking wet dream.

Forms 5 experience desired: They just woke up to the fact the plug is
about to be pulled on the VAX with Forms 2.3.

Telecommuting Forms development: After you've got two years face time.

Some travel required: They are afraid of hackers.

50% travel required: 100% travel required.

Experience with writing Stored Procedures: You will be the Oracle guy
in a SQL Server shop with "strange" ideas about what a DBA does.

Functional DBA wanted: No DBA skills necessary if you know app.

Must have thorough knowledge of roles and privileges: Developers
have DBA privileges.

Must be a team player: Boss is biased towards Microsoft.

[Long laundry list of Oracle skills]: They made the last guy write a job
description before they arbitrarily released him to get someone cheaper after
the dot-com debacle.

Oracle DBA to $120K: Headhunter farming.

Oracle DBA to $80K: Revolving door job.

3 month contract-to-hire: 6 month contract.

Oracle DBA's needed now!: Headhunter farming.

Local applicants only: Been burned moving someone out who left after 3 months.

Good presentation skills: Geeks need foxy babe to gawk at.

Training provided: But not before you are let go because you didn't know it
already.

B2B: Knowledge of non-Oracle tools necessary because numb-nuts will be
sending all sorts of garbage data, rendering all referential integrity
useless. Unannounced format changes alone make it a full time job, then
there's the actual work...

XML: Venture capital funding about to run out, so everyone has left.

1-3 years DBA experience necessary: Vice-President of Sales was once
a secretary, and she used an Access database, so she thinks she knows
what a DBA does.

3-5 years DBA experience necessary: Manager was an Ashton-Tate expert and
thinks Oracle should be able to do everything just like Dbase.

7+ years DBA experience necessary: V5 conversion project.

C++ required: Last gasp of company that was leading edge a few years ago,
now just a ghost of former self.

ODBC and PRO*C required: Apps company living off past glory.

Knowledge of Lotus Notes essential: Someone high up convinced board that a
bunch of PC's can replace a real server.

Manufacturing apps experience required: They don't have Internet access
yet. When they get it, you will get fired for cause due to "surfing the net"
to metalink, comp.databases.oracle.* and orafaq, rather than working.

Supervisory experience required: Spend all your time "managing" rather than
working.

Successful implementation track record: Thar be lawsuits.

Successful track record of a Data Warehouse implementation required: They
still don't get what a DW is and won't be told.

Will share responsibility with 2 other DBA's for critical 7/24 system: You
will be low man on the totem pole in a place with insufficient budget, so
no vacations, 100 hour weeks exempted from overtime, and you get the worst
hours.

Technical DBA: It will start out with normal DBA functions, but application
visibility will force you into pure coding until the functional DBA leaves,
then you have to do that too. Then the database will start whining for
attention...

Shell scripting: Previous DBA liked cryptography.

Perl scripting: Previous DBA won obfuscation contest.

Posix: App runs under obscure and/or orphaned OS such as MP/E.

Knowledge of Database Design essential: Database needs a _lot_ of reverse
engineering. Developers were under pressure to produce, with no DBA...

Additional comments cheerfully accepted.

jg
--
These opinions are my own.
http://www.garry.to Oracle and unix guy.
mailto:joel-...@nospam.cox.net Remove nospam to reply.

Marius Bernklev

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Mar 31, 2002, 2:12:21 PM3/31/02
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joel-...@nospam.cox.net (Joel Garry) writes:

> [snip]

ROFL.


Marius
--
<URL: http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~mariube/>

Newsere mot X-No-Archive

Mark D Powell

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Apr 1, 2002, 10:15:19 AM4/1/02
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Marius Bernklev <mar...@ifi.uio.no> wrote in message news:<3cfy9g8...@sex.ifi.uio.no>...

> joel-...@nospam.cox.net (Joel Garry) writes:
>
> > [snip]
>
> ROFL.
>
>
> Marius

I would laugh, but too much of the post was true to life for it to be funny.

-- Mark D Powell --

Greg Kainz

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Apr 1, 2002, 10:15:17 PM4/1/02
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Yep, you got it right on the nose!

- 12 years of Senior Oracle experience: willing to pay the going rate for
12 months of junior dba experience

Greg
"Joel Garry" <joel-...@nospam.cox.net> wrote in message
news:slrnaaef5v.i...@zr1.vista1.sdca.cox.net...

Joel Garry

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Apr 2, 2002, 1:14:09 AM4/2/02
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Laugh or cry, man, laugh or cry. There would be no comedy without tragedy.
What got me started on this was, while looking for a job I saw ads for two
positions I had previously held. One of them was, of course, the worst
situation I have ever seen. So yes, there actually is very little exageration
in that post! To me, that is the funniest part of it, but it is also the
most serious.

Scott Adams is an optimist.

As our industry matures, we need some sort of congruent maturation of the
nature of work itself. There is so much abuse in the name of productivity
and innovation, there is a very real danger of backlash. What sort of
backlash? Who knows? Maybe government regulation, maybe a resurgence of
labor unions, maybe a communism fad, maybe the collapse of Western
Civilization. Or not.

Suggestions on how to be more funny gladly accepted.

ceecil

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May 24, 2002, 2:16:09 AM5/24/02
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Garry,

You are so true in what you wrote. Anybody with common sense and some
experience would realize present day reality after reading your
description. How about Managers who are so busy going for meetings who
do not have the inclination or the time to clear define the specs of a
job? And that's putting it lightly. They just don't know the specs!!.

And how about the HR department who know nothing about anything who
finally decide the specs of the job.

--
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http://dbforums.com

Mike Ault

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May 28, 2002, 10:40:38 AM5/28/02
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I've been accused of single handedly undermining the entire DBA hiring
process by providing my 30+ pages of interview questions and answers
free for the taking (oh no....do I here another me too avalance?). It
pretty much demonstrates that those doing the hiring have no clue
about what a DBA does and in many cases, neither does the
candidtate...:) I had one interviewee that called me from a cell phone
parked on the side of the road and then got upset when I actually
wanted him to answer some indepth Oracle questions, he said "I don't
have time for this" and hung up. Needless to say, he didn't get the
job...

Mike
ceecil <mem...@dbforums.com> wrote in message news:<3ceddaa9$1...@usenetgateway.com>...

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