Why Do I Love My Job?

My first journey into the database world started back in university, with my first project in Visual FoxPro pooling data from an Access database. Then in 2004, Greg Smith, one of the best teachers I ever had, opened my eyes to the world of Oracle. Since then I got hooked. At the time I learned Oracle 9i, and since then technology advanced a lot.

Have you ever asked yourself why you do what you do? Do you love what you do? Do you get excited in the morning when you wake up to go to work? In general, us humans, are spending more than a third of our life at work, and if you’re not excited about your work or you don’t like it, then you are wasting your most precious asset: your time.

I believe I am fortunate enough to say that I picked a career that I not only like, but I love too. So WHY do I do what I do? Because it fulfills the six human needs, that we all have: the need for certainty, the need for variety, the need for significance, the need for connection, the need for growth, and the need for contribution.

As a DBA, my day is never boring. There is lots of variety in my job. there is always someone walking in with an interesting question (technical), or a ticket that challenges your knowledge, or project work. People come to me, the DBA for advise and opinion on how to aproach certain thing, as they think the DBA knows the answer for everthing. Everyday I learn something new or rediscover something I forgot. I help people solve their problems, whether that is as simple as resetting their password, or more complex problem such as why is my report running so slow. I have the power of saying NO, if I don’t agree with something.

Have you noticed that the best days at work are NOT the ones that you haven’t done anything, but the ones where you contributed, or made a difference for someone.

So next morning when you wake up, see how you feel. Do you feel excitement to go to work, and ask yourself why!

Until next time,

Diana