T-SQL Tuesday #112 – Dipping into your Cookie Jar.

Shane O’Neill (t|b) is hosting this month’s T-SQL Tuesday and is asking us what the cookies in our jar are. The cookies being the moments you’re proud of and keep you going in harder times.

The fact that i had to think about it for a while wasn’t the best of signs. Because i think i really like what i’m doing during my working hours, those cookies shouldn’t be hard to find. Then the thought came up that there might be a number of cookies so not just one would pop up.

The first thing that keeps me going at hard problems is that i’ve always managed to get out of it. I agree that there have been occasions where i just wanted to run away and cry after two weeks of fighting an issue with no progress whatsoever.
To this day, there is a specific module from my employers ETL process i refuse to touch ever again. There are parts called “the time machine” and issues seem to arise there for no justifiable reason. Just walk away. But with help from both the customer and a good coworker, the issue was solved in the end.

But that was before i got into the stuff i love most. And that is education. Teaching. Sharing knowledge. And most importantly, seeing peoples eyes light up when they get a concept i’ve been explaining. Things like the difference between left outer join and right outer join or the concept of NULL. I’m working on my third training right now and off course i’m hitting walls where i know what to write but not how to write it. But then there’s that enourmous jar full of cookies. Because there’s no substitute for the rewarding feeling of seeing people grow.

Lately a tweet from Pinal Dave triggered me to restart adding to other peoples cookie jar by acknowledging their help to me, us, the community. For example, i’m using the dbatools and dbachecks more and more. So why not thank the people behind that publicly? They invest lots of time in developing the tooling so we can shine at work or at clients. And those moments of succes fill our cookie jars. But you can share those cookies too! Maybe i’m digressing a bit from the original topic but giving back is one of the backbones of the sql community.

If you write a blog, work on a site, publish vlogs or anything, chances are i’ve seen and/or read it. Thank you for your time! Add this cookie to your jar to pick up when you wonder why you share your knowledge.

Thanks for reading and thanks Shane for hosting this month’s T-SQL tuesday.