| June 2007 |
| By Joseph Faillace |
A couple years ago I was brought into an organization to help phase out their legacy system that was being replaced by Oracle. I had not seen much of Oracle in the past, but I had heard stories…You know those tall tales that are whispered in the break room and told around the campfire at leadership retreats to scare the new guys before bedtime. The company I was consulting for asked me to stay on to help support their new Oracle application. I decided to take the position and now I am glad I did because Oracle is a world onto itself large enough for an individual to explore, learn, grow, and find a niche to settle into. Here are a few tips to fellow adventurers considering landing on the planet Oracle.
-Find a stable place to land
The 1st thing any interplanetary explorer would tell you when considering an exploration of a new planet is finding a stable place to set down. When looking for a position where you can work with Oracle, don’t be overly ambitious. Take on a position where you are comfortable with many of the job functions required of you, this way you can use your energy learning and growing as a technical Oracle user, and not trying to keep your head above water with your day to day responsibilities.
-Get acclimated to the terrain
Getting acclimated to the terrain means moving forward step by step in a surefooted manner feeling out your landing area and the ones surrounding it. Once you’ve landed in a position where you work with Oracle use your time to understand how the database is structured for your responsibility, then for the responsibilities related to you, and then responsibilities which are more indirectly related to you. Learn how to navigate through the forms and user interfaces. This will give you a good foundation in how the database works as a whole within your organization, where important information is entered and kept, and understanding the logic of those who designed Oracle. If you can learn to think like an Oracle designer you will be able to solve a lot of problems that may come up. Your organization will be very appreciative.
-Learn the language
When entering a new world it is imperative that you learn the language of that alien culture. Become an expert in the dialects of SQL and PLSQL. Take online tutorials, read books, take classes, whatever it takes. Knowing where information is in Oracle and then being able to query the data in meaningful ways through SQL is extremely useful. In fact this skill is so useful that many of explorers’ journeys end here and they become an interplanetary translator of sorts running queries for different business groups and management. Now if this is not what you want to be doing, be careful at this point, many explorers have forgotten their initial goals and have gone the route of instant gratification and have gotten swallowed up in a black whole of endless requests and pats on the back from their coworkers. All I can say is make sure you manage the amount of requests you take on and peoples expectations.
-Explore the area
Oracle being a large system has a lot of areas for exploration. You may find your niche when looking at its reporting tools, configuration, administration, UPK training development, technical specs, form development, or change management. You will most likely find yourself gravitating towards areas which are appealing to you and look familiar to what you’ve known on a different world. This is not a bad thing. The whole point of exploration is to find a place to settle down.
-Build your settlement
Don’t spend all of your days endlessly exploring the vast expanses of the Oracle world, but instead choose a particular area and become a subject matter expert. In this you will find a place to settle down, where you can harvest the most amount of money. The planet Oracle was never meant to be inhabited by one person who lives off and supports the whole system, but only works within a community of people who take care of their portion of responsibilities. This requires the desire and ability to work well with others, supporting their needs while entrusting them to support you as well.
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