TSQL Tuesdays # 42

It is time for TSQL Tuesday - Wendy Pastrick (blog | twitter) is hosting this month and the topic is "The Long and Winding Road". Wow, this is a great topic - I cant wait to read many of the other posts over the course of this week! :) This is my first time writing for TSQL Tuesdays, and I cant think of a better way to start.

To start off with, computers have been a part of my life since I was "knee high to a grasshopper". I remember playing on the ATARI and the Commodore. That was back in the days when you put the cartridge for Frogger in, went to have dinner, and then by the time you finished, it was loaded and you could play. I also remember when the game BOMB SQUAD came out and it TALKED!! Holy smokes it was totally AWESOME at the time! :) (I don’t do a good impression of those words, although I try, but they are definitely etched into my brain for all time.) I remember thinking, at that young of an age, how smart and creative you would have to be to come up with stuff like this. I dabbled in basic for a bit, and I am proud to say I wrote my first code at a tender young age - I could print on the screen "Hello Dad, this is cool!" and make it repeat X number of times.

Skip ahead a few years (ok many… but who is counting?) - I was an administrative assistant at an HMO in Florida. I always had a knack for picking up on how software worked by playing around, and as an Admin Asst, it came in handy to be able to help others. I got in good with the IT guys, I mean after all, you should always make friends with IT. That is the first time I was introduced to databases. I worked in the Pharmacy department and we had a vendor that tracked the utilization of medications for our members that we needed to better analyze. So, I used the tools I knew, Microsoft Office and came up with a fabulous solution. I imported the csv file they sent monthly into an Access database (please don’t cringe, the story gets better - I promise :)). Then, scrubbed and manipulated the data, and finally spit it out to Excel. Excel took over and I ran a few macros, and voila - the end result was a formatted report that was used as is. Everything was automated and I LOVED it!

I should have taken the hint even back then, but it took several years and a few jobs in between for me to figure out my passion - data and database management. Right now, I work with SQL 2008 R2, but I have worked with a number of database platforms (MS Access, FoxPro, Visual FoxPro, mySQL, SQL Server 2000/2005/2008/2008 R2 and now delving into 2012). I have loved the intricacies of each, but like working with SQL Server most. I am in a 2.85 person BI team, and while I think what they do on the analysis side is cool, nothing compares to digging my hands into the database directly. I like giving accurate data into the hands of my colleagues and letting them do whatever they wish with it. I also love SSIS! I don’t know what I would do without it at the moment.

While SQL Server is what is taking me to new places right now, I have to be honest. I cherish the memory of when I made my first integrated BI app using an Access database and Excel macros. I don’t know where I would be without that experience. I truly hope to have that kind of moment in SQL Server. I am studying to get my certifications in SQL Server 2012. Hopefully along the way I will have a chance - with such interesting characters in this industry, it is probably almost guaranteed! :)