Skip to main content

Coming down to earth at OOW14

Before I joined Oracle, I was honored to be an ACE Director for several years, and boy did I get spoiled. Especially at Oracle Open World time.

Oracle paid for my airfare and hotel. They set up the hotel reservation. They picked me up in (non-stretch) limo and delivered me to that hotel. They drove me back to the airport. Nice....

Then I rejoined Oracle in March of this year.

In late August, I was talking with a friend at Oracle and mentioned that I had yet to arrange my hotel.

"Whaaaat?" she practically screeched in the phone. "You don't have your hotel? Oh, Steven, you better get on that right away."

Turns out I had received an email on 7 July saying, in effect, "Congrats, Steven as Oracle employee. We have confirmed your registration for the now. NOW GO RESERVE YOUR HOTEL ROOM."

But I didn't notice that last part. Just filed the email away.

So I followed the advice of my friend, and went on-line to get my hotel reservation set up.

Guess what? I am staying in Emeryville, across the Bay. An hour long BART commute back and forth, that still leaves me 2 miles from the hotel. A big change in the daily dynamic. In the past, I could casually stroll from hotel to first session of day, or to a breakfast meeting. Then at the end of the day, I always knew the hotel was just a few minutes away.

Now, I must commute to OOW each day (and back at night). I will not have my hotel room as a place to return during the day. I will lug my backpack around all day. I will think about how late I want to stay at that "one more" event in the evening.

Yep, a care-free "celebrity" no more.

Kind of a relief, really. I never did feel very comfortable having a driver just for me (not that I ever turned down the airport pickup, though I often arranged to get back on my own).

And I always found it a little bit silly to be featured in the "Celebrity Seminar Series" when I did trainings for Oracle University.

I realize it's going to be tough, but I think I can do it. I can ride public transportation. I can pay more attention to my plan for the day and evening.

Or maybe I can find a friend with a hotel room at Union Square to crash with.

Comments

  1. iudithSeptember 21, 2014 at 10:54 AM

    Hello Steven,

    Today morning I just read a post on a web site, which was so "optimistic"
    as to predict that, following the newly announced change in Larry Ellison's position, pretty all Oracle employees will have to review their CV-s, because within about 6 months from now they will probably be looking for new jobs ...

    In comparison with such a case, maybe the hotel is not so big a problem ...

    ... and, I still hope it will be a good incentive for you to think of visiting other places
    as well ... where, well, ... you will also surely enjoy your former ACE Director's treatment :) :) :)

    Enjoy the OOW however, and please share your experience there with us :)

    Best Regards,
    Iudith

    ReplyDelete
  2. Steven FeuersteinSeptember 21, 2014 at 4:51 PM

    Oracle employees getting their CVs ready? I really doubt it. My immediate impression is that they come up with a way to start the transition to a No Larry Oracle without alarming anyone or rocking the boat too much. And I very much like him being CTO and more involved in product. Oracle Database was his first product and I think he is still close to it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE should not be in your application code

A database developer recently came across my  Bulletproof PL/SQL  presentation, which includes this slide. That first item in the list caught his attention: Never put calls to DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE in your application code. So he sent me an email asking why I would say that. Well, I suppose that is the problem with publishing slide decks. All the explanatory verbiage is missing. I suppose maybe I should do a video. :-) But in the meantime, allow me to explain. First, what does DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE do? It writes text out to a buffer, and when your current PL/SQL block terminates, the buffer is displayed on your screen. [Note: there can be more to it than that. For example, you could in your own code call DBMS_OUTPUT.GET_LINE(S) to get the contents of the buffer and do something with it, but I will keep things simple right now.] Second, if I am telling you not to use this built-in, how could text from your program be displayed on your screen? Not without a lot o...
4 comments
Read more

The future of Oracle PL/SQL: some thoughts on Sten Vesterli's thoughts

Sten Vesterli published a very thought-provoking post on his blog: Please stop reading this post, and read that one. When you are done, come on back here for my thoughts on Sten's thoughts. OK. You read it. Here we go. First, thanks, Sten, for being such an interesting, wise, sometimes provocative voice in our community. Next, Sten writes: Now, on the one hand, I certainly agree that the vast majority of young developers are currently caught up in the modern version of a Gold Rush, which is: "Build an app using JavaScript, pay no attention to that database behind the curtain." But I can assure you that I still do meet young PL/SQL programmers, regularly, when I am at conferences and doing onsite presentations at companies. So, young person who writes PL/SQL: do not be afraid! You are not alone! And you are super-smart to have made the choice you did. :-) Next, Sten offers this advice to managers: I agree that PL/SQL is a "spec...
46 comments
Read more

Table Functions, Part 1: Introduction and Exploration

Please do feel encouraged to read this and my other posts on table functions, but you will learn much more about table functions by taking my Get Started with PL/SQL Table Functions class at the Oracle Dev Gym. Videos, tutorials and quizzes - then print a certificate when you are done! Table functions - functions that can be called in the FROM clause of a query from inside the TABLE operator - are fascinating and incredibly helpful constructs. So I've decided to write a series of blog posts on them: how to build them, how to use them, issues you might run into. Of course, I am not the first to do so. I encourage to check out the  documentation , as well as excellent posts from Adrian Billington (search for "table functions") and Tim Hall . Adrian and Tim mostly focus on pipelined table functions, a specialized variant of table functions designed to improve performance and reduce PGA consumption. I will take a look at pipelined table functions in the latter part...
31 comments
Read more