{"id":5391,"date":"2026-08-10T21:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/?p=5391"},"modified":"2026-08-10T21:18:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:18:47","slug":"reflections-on-15-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/reflections-on-15-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on 15 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"5391\" class=\"elementor elementor-5391\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-b9bd0f8 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"b9bd0f8\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-e-type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-5b9d740\" data-id=\"5b9d740\" data-element_type=\"column\" data-e-type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-f4e5f1a elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"f4e5f1a\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>(This was the editorial for my 300th SQLskills Insider newsletter last week, that I&#8217;ve been producing since March 2011! See bottom of browser window to subscribe.)<\/em><\/p><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I was torn between a \u201creflections on 15 years\u201d and a \u201cmental health\u201d ponderings for the 300<sup>th<\/sup> edition, so here\u2019s a bit of both \u2013 blasted out in a half-hour brain dump.<\/p><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The world has become a very noisy, uncaring, impolite place. I have misophonia, a very low tolerance for nonsense (in a less polite setting I\u2019d say b***s**t or f***ery), and a deep, deep dislike of phones, small-talk, or interruptions. So all these things, that have become ubiquitous over the last 15 years, are most irritating:<\/p><ul><li>Cell phones that \u2018ding\u2019 constantly<\/li><li>People having speakerphone conversations in stores, planes, restaurants<\/li><li>Constant spam texts and calls \u2013 the FTC do-not-call list is a joke<\/li><li>Sensationalist news<\/li><li>People in such a rush that they tail-gate, weave through traffic, and generally drive dangerously<\/li><li>Anything to do with our dysfunctional politics (and likely in your country too, if not in the US)<\/li><li>Entitlement and inconsideration when traveling<\/li><li>Neighbors letting dogs bark, bark, bark, bark at all times of day and evening<\/li><li>The seeming lack of pride and professionalism in many service industries<\/li><li>People letting their kids run wild in restaurants<\/li><li>The disappearance of basic politeness like saying please and thank you<\/li><li>And more<\/li><\/ul><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Am I just an angry old (oldish, ok? only 54!) man? No, I\u2019ve been writing about some of these things since 2011 (see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-golden-rule-maybe-just-optional-now\/\">https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/the-golden-rule-maybe-just-optional-now\/<\/a>). But I am much more intolerant and now that I\u2019ve slowed down since the pandemic I notice these things a lot more.<\/p><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">And they grate and grind and oppress. Which is why I enjoy being at Camp Savage so much \u2013 no people, noise, traffic, travel \u2013 just lots of nature. Am I wandering off into the woods to bury my head in the sand and live in a shack? Well, kind of lol! Part of our Camp Savage move is to get out of the city, the rat-race, the noise and pollution, and live a healthier, happier life with lots of open space, animals, greenhouses, and so on.<\/p><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">That\u2019s the mental health part. Well, and stopping drinking 18 months ago \u2013 that was life-changing, obviously. It\u2019s taken 18 months for my brain to rewire itself.<\/p><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">What about SQL Server? Well, if you think about the bits that I\u2019m interested in, not a whole lot has changed. Sure, there are new, impactful features like columnstore, AGs, query store , ADR, but when it comes down to it, what I\u2019m interested in, consult on, and teach hasn\u2019t really changed. People still need to:<\/p><ul><li>Figure out where performance is a problem and then fix it<\/li><li>Have a disaster recovery plan that works<\/li><li>Implement high availability<\/li><li>Understand some of how the engine works<\/li><li>Use indexes correctly<\/li><li>Communicate well (by far the most popular of all our Pluralsight courses!)<\/li><\/ul><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I\u2019m often asked if I\u2019m concerned about cloud or AI meaning DBAs will be out of a job or SQLskills will become irrelevant. We have many clients who have no interest in Azure (either from security, performance, scalability, or just basic trust issues) . We also have a bunch who do use the cloud in some way, but it\u2019s not going to become a zero-on-prem game. AI is in no way ready to replace DBAs \u2013 plenty of stories out there of AI doing the wrong thing, the explicitly \u2018do not do that\u2019 thing, or going rogue. And AIs are only as good as what they\u2019re trained on and who they\u2019re trained by. I\u2019ve seen some horrible answers to test questions I\u2019ve asked AI engines.<\/p><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">So my answer is a big, fat \u2018no\u2019. Not concerned. We\u2019re still here, and hopefully will still be for many years to come.<\/p><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Quietly \ud83d\ude0a<\/p><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">PS One reader, John Ness, wrote this excellent description of DBAs (reproduced and attributed with permission):<\/p><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">We don&#8217;t seek the limelight (well not a lot of us) in our everyday jobs. We are just there constantly taking care of the hundreds or thousands of databases (in my case 1200) and ensuring that everything keeps running, that the users can expect constant peak performance, that the backups and restores work, and that the databases are in a consistent state. We don&#8217;t shine like a bright light; we glow in the dark.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(This was the editorial for my 300th SQLskills Insider newsletter last week, that I&#8217;ve been producing since March 2011! See bottom of browser window to subscribe.) I was torn between a \u201creflections on 15 years\u201d and a \u201cmental health\u201d ponderings for the 300th edition, so here\u2019s a bit of both \u2013 blasted out in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Reflections on 15 Years - Paul S. 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