When we moved from Miami to Houston for Erika’s new job as an air traffic controller, my employer wasn’t too sure whether or not telecommuting would work out. Southern Wine currently doesn’t have a pro-telecommuting policy by any means: one company exec stood up at a company meeting and said they would “never” allow it, and went so far as to repeat the “never” several times. However, my managers gave me a couple of months to finish up my current projects, and then said they’d re-evaluate their stance on telecommuting.

I didn’t want to push my luck, so I went ahead and made a few calls. I’m really excited to say that I’m going to be a SQL Server DBA at a leading global financial services firm with a huge presence in Houston, and it’s a company I really admire.

I got a laugh out of one question during the interview. I asked if they had any worries about me or thought I had any negatives, and they said they were worried that the job wouldn’t challenge me enough. Every job has its challenges, but for personal growth, I’ve been getting more enjoyment out of writing articles and spreading knowledge about database topics, SAN trends, and hardware issues. Southern gave me a lot of great opportunities to contribute in several IT areas, but I’m looking forward to a few less weekend phone calls. (Had three on-call episodes this weekend alone, and I’m not even on-call anymore!) Less surprise calls = more articles for you, dear reader.

I have to thank everybody at Quest Software: without their encouragement, I never would have thought to do something like submit an article for SQL Server Magazine or speak at a conference. Now, I can’t believe I waited so long to do it, and I can’t imagine doing it without their help. They really do believe in encouraging a strong sense of community around the products they support – not just the Quest software lines, but the underlying engines like SQL Server and Oracle. I could rattle off half a dozen Quest people, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t specifically thank Heather Eichman and Rachel Gross.