A Well Deserved Break

Voice of the DBA

This is my last day of work. Not forever, just for six weeks. I’m off on my sabbatical after today and won’t be back until August 11. However, everything should run smoothly with Grant and Kellyn holding things down until I return. Have a little patience with them as this site can be a bit of a hectic whirlwind at times, and they still have other jobs to do.

It’s been a wild first half of the year. After very little travel in Jan/Feb, the rest of the year has been a bunch of travel, including most of May and June being on the road. With coaching responsibilities for two teams from Jan-Apr, I am ready for a break. No big plans, but I am looking forward to being at home, playing some guitar, working on a few projects while trying to be very unwired for six weeks.

I know most of us tech professionals likely deserve a break from work at some point. I am very lucky to get a sabbatical, on top of vacation allowances. It took my a number of years to understand and learn to relax while on breaks. Too many years of being on call, owning a business, and driving my career forward had me delaying or skipping vacations some years. I carried over a lot of days from year to year at many positions.

That’s a bad idea.

We need breaks. We need to recharge, and while I wasn’t thrilled when Redgate’s policy changed, I have come to appreciate it. We can only carry over a week, and I try not to do that in any year. They want employees to take breaks, and I try to do so. My wife certainly appreciates me getting away from work and not checking email, Slack, etc. I was nervous the first few times I left SQL Server Central for a week, often trying to get an hour of work to check on things every morning while on vacation. I come to trust that everyone at Redgate will keep an eye on things and ensure the site keeps running.

I may still blog about the sabbatical, but I don’t know it will be any sort of priority. I’ve been quite busy up until today and haven’t had time to plan much of anything. That won’t make for any interesting blogs, but it will be a well-deserved break.

Steve Jones

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