I hope you will all forgive this slightly off topic post.
You may find it a bit interesting. There's also a punch line for all the codgers among us. ;) Jared --------------------------------- Joys of having an intern If you have ever had the privilege of having a fresh faced intern at your side, one that is still in school and still has a couple of years to go, you can probably identify with this missive. If not, well, you may just want one of your own. Or not. Our groups manager signed us up with an intern program from one of the state universities. One of my coworkers was to work with him first, and had a number of tasks lined out for him. This coworker unfortunately left the company the week before the intern was due to arrive. So you can guess who was dutifully assigned on short notice to put him to work. :) I had previously decided that his efforts would be directed toward implementing Oracle Names at our headquarters. I've been here less than a year, and though the tnsnames.ora-on- every-desktop had been a thorn in my side at times, it was nonetheless not a high priority item. Perfect. I can get rid of this plague of tnsnames.ora locusts, and someone else can do the work! Wrong. First let me say that the student intern is a very bright young man of 20 years old, and is majoring in business information systems. He has obviously spent some time with computers before entering college. This time has all been spent in Windoze environments however. He has never ( no, *never* ) done anything from a command line. Hmmm.... This may require some education. This intern is in addition to being intelligent, a very polite and nice young man. Secondly, let me say that it would have been easier, faster, cheaper and less stressful to do this myself. Not to say that this effort is without its rewards. There is a certain amount of satisfaction that goes along with teaching someone to do your job. You get to teach it to them the way you think it should be done for instance. There was a point where after a few days a of struggling with the assignments I had given him, a lot of it came together for him. He was excited that much of the stuff I had been discussing with him was now actually making sense. The excitement was contagious. He now has a good understanding of Oracle Names, and could probably do most of the implementation himself. Since it will be done on production servers, I will do it, and he will have to be content to watch. There are other, less altruistic forms of gratification that can be achieved from having an intern. This comes in the form of the ego boosting that occurs when you see a bright young fellow struggling for several hours with the latest assignment. An assignment that you spent 90 minutes outlining in a document with plenty of hints of what to do, and all of the code 90% done with just a few fill-in-the-blanks sections. An assignment that you just did yourself, in 15 minutes. ;) -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists -------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
