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Andrew Plato <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
>I was in your EXACT position in 1993. And you know what I did. I went and
>bought a book on SQL and learned databases at night. I used my home computer
>and set up my own databases. I asked questions. I read, learned, and made the
>best out of a tough situation. At the end of the project, I knew SQL pretty
>well. So well, that I got hired at a consulting firm for more money, then went
>on to document databases at a BIG software company where I made a ton of money.
>So much that I was able to start my own business - which has grown into one of
>the nation's more prominent information security firms.
Am I right in guessing that you have a knack for databases? There are people who
do and people who don't; while one shouldn't always say "I can't do it" when
something new crops up, there are times when one just knows that one really can't.
do a particular kind of thing. Someone who gets crosseyed at SQL might happily
jump into something else. One might also have a life outside work (I've heard
rumors of people like this, anyway).
And even if you are superduperfastlearner who has a knack for the subject at hand,
the company might still not be interested in waiting for you to ramp up. They may
need more depth than can be learned that fast, especially if one doesn't have a
database brain. It sounds like someone got _very_ confused: whether or not the
situation is salvageable depends on a lot more than someone's mere willingness
to learn something new.
(I say this as someone who is developing a non-trivial database for my job and
learning to do it on my own time.)
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