Yes, it means "Oxbridge" and I agree with your observations
re. the strategy. It's just so silly and short-termist.
-----Original Message-----
Sent: 12 November 2001 17:27
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Oracle
Is Red Brick the same as Oxbridge? I thought it was the universities
founded in the 50s and 60s, i.e. not one of those useless former
Polytechnics, but not one of the elite (Oxbridge/Russell Group). I've
seen a few job ads where it says Oxbridge degree and the job is HTML
coder. Still, if the economy crashes it will be possible to hire very
high quality candidates very cheaply. But that's only a short term
strategy, if your new hires resent being taken advantage of, they'll be
out of there as soon as things pick up...
g
-----Original Message-----
Sent: 10 November 2001 17:15
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Oracle
Don and others,
Further food for our thoughts:
It seems that the other trend (in the UK anyway) is to insist on
ridiculous
combination of skills when a DBA job is specified to the agencies
(recruiters).
Try this one: The ad. heading says something like "senior Oracle DBA"
but when you look at the list of "must haves", you see that quite apart
from
being a very experienced Oracle DBA and knowledge of most Oracle tools
(hmm....that's OK), you have to have:
1) A significant amount of something like SYBASE experience
2) A First Degree from a "red brick" University (Cambridge or Oxford)
3) Several years of Java Development in a J2EE environment
Now, my first thought is this: if I had a "first" from an Oxbridge
University,
why the h*ll would I want to be a DBA ????
Martin
-----Original Message-----
Granaman
Sent: 10 November 2001 09:05
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Oracle
I can sympathize with Yosi. I resigned my last position in June after
four years of insanely intense activity. For example, being the only
DBA in a two year period of 1500% growth, averaging 90+ hours a week
in 1999, 80+ in 2000, etc... I was at the highest attainable
technical level in a rather large internet-based company (3000+
employees, 350+ in IT) - reporting directly to the VP of Enterprise
Infrastructure as his chief technology consultant (emphasis on Oracle
and back-end systems design & architecture). I won't go into all my
reasons for leaving, but I decided to quit and take a break for a
month or two. For the first month or so, I was ducking/deferring
recruiters. Then things just dried up - totally...
Since then, my situation has been similar to Yosi 's. I do a few
technical presentations to the local Oracle user group, attend
seminars, play around with 9i, read a lot of white papers, and do a
(very) little bit of independent consulting. Not one of the three
recruiters I've been dealing with have even called in over two months
now. I went in for my first interview in three months yesterday - a
small startup technology company - but they are really looking to hire
a mid-range DBA at an entry-level salary. I've been doing nothing but
Oracle on Unix for over a dozen years and have outstanding credentials
and references. Its not exactly a perfect fit.
An earlier post asked why DBAs should be more vulnerable than others.
Rachel stated the essence of the problem - DBA isn't like development.
If the job is done properly and everything is running smoothly, the
attitude is "What does a DBA do anyway? Do we actually need one?"
When things go bad, its often the DBA or SA that gets hit in the
blamestorming - justified or not. Development is very visible when
they do things - users see a direct result. When things go bad, they
often blame the system or the database. (I've actually heard
development managers and developers tell the CIO that "Application
design and coding doesn't have anything to do with performance -
that's the DBA's job"!)
Just look at the posts here and on the Lazy-DBA list (much more so) in
the last six months or so. A *LOT* more of them are of the type "We
laid off our DBA two months ago and I was assigned to take over the
DBA duties". Followed by "A disk went bad and now the database is
down. What should I do?" or "How should I layout my database?" or
"How do I do a backup?" or ... There are tons of very elementary
questions from people who have taken over DBA duties from someone who
was laid off or left and wasn't replaced. Many more than in the past.
Too many companies are:
1) Not replacing DBAs that leave
2) Laying off DBAs
(The rest are supposed to "work smarter, not harder."
A statement from PHB that is often immediately followed with
or preceded by with some decree that forces the opposite! ;-)
3) Trying to hire DBAs at drastically lower salaries (40%-70%)
(monster.com and dice.com are interesting reads!)
The demand for Oracle DBAs won't reach the extremes of 1999-2000 again
for many years - if ever. The dot-com fiasco pushed it to artificial
highs. However, there is still a huge difference between many years,
perhaps even a decade or two, of serious experience and an OCP with a
year that a lot of companies don't seem to want to recognize right
now. The net result of this could easily be a frenzy of job shifting
when the economy does recover and demand goes back up.
Frankly, I'm almost ready to join Jenny and make a radical career
change. My uncle wants to retire from his successful hardware store
business. I'm considering buying it. (Hmmm... What about he
Menards/HomeDepot/... effect?)
-Don Granaman
[OraSaurus]
----- Original Message -----
To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 8:30 PM
an Oracle
> Yeah, been here, still here... (It's amazing, I'm busier now that
I'm
> unemployed, just not with paid work... Go figure.) Gotten some
> (minor) contract work for a few weeks, but really nothing doing
> here in New York. It's brutal, boys and girls.
>
> My friend's large bank was going to announce 5% job cuts
> this week, but they pushed it off so they could figure out a way
> cut more than the 5%. Did I mention it's brutal?
>
> That said, had my first interview in two, maybe three, months today.
> Actually sounds promising, like there's really a position to fill,
and
> they're really hiring. Been out since July, and the kids would
REALLY
> like to eat again.
>
> Will keep you informed.
>
> Yosi
).
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