More Weird Dreams
In this scenario I was back in graduate school. (It's weird how often I still have college-related nightmares over 25 years after I last taught. Quite often it's like I'm sitting for a final totally unprepared, like never attending class or cracking open a book. This never happened in real life, although I remember being completely swerved by 2-3 exams for which I had studied. There have been cases in incompetently conducted tech screens, particularly from Indians, where I'll get quizzed over arcane settings or constructs, certain general Oracle error messages in specialized contexts, etc. I'm not going to outline here how I have done or would do a screen (that itself is a fungible skill set), but I would expect a DBA, for example, to understand backups and cloning/refreshing databases, what kind of things to check in assuming responsibility for a production database, platform nuances (e.g., an Oracle database in Windows vs Unix environments, utilities in creating or upgrading databases and network configuration, Oracle security patching basics, working with Oracle technical support, where can I find Oracle documentation, etc. I'm more interested in open-ended scenarios than arbitrary short answers (one of my favorite anecdotes is someone asked Einstein for his home phone number. Einstein takes a phone directory and looks up his number. The astonished colleague says, "Don't you know your own phone number?" Einstein responds, "I never need to call myself.")Just to give the reader an example of the kinds of off-the-wall issues I've encountered over the years, another DBA at my last job asked me why the first password change he processed completed successfully, but the next one didn't, and he seemed to be using correct syntax. Off the top of my head, I asked, "Did you check to see if the log archive destination is full?" Now I had never seen his scenario before. He later emailed me back, "Yeah, as soon I moved files to open up some space, I was able to complete the password changes in question.. Thanks!" Now probably 90% of the DBA's I've ever worked with couldn't have diagnosed it. Would I use it in an Oracle screen? Probably not. But I probably would have worked in some question relative to archive logs.
So, anyway in this dream, I was one of maybe 10 graduate assistants. I had been late registering and the school had some sort of hoteling construct of assigning a student to an office. I checked my message box and found a couple of metallic (?) student safety notices. So the context was that we were assigned students, and it was our function to read said students the riot act for safety violations. I really didn't have any contact information, and I asked the others how they handled the issue. They basically told me nothing, that early student addresses from the university weren't reliable.
My Friend Bruce
There are probably 3 men I would put into the very good friend category, 2 of whom I met in my post-academic career (both now living on the West Coast, but I initially met Ray in the Chicago area in the mid-90's), but probably my best friend is Bruce Breeding. (I may have mentioned him in a first-year blog post I entitled "Gifts in an Academic Career".)We met as doctoral student office mates at UH. I occupied the near right corner, Minnie Yen (later at Alaska-Anchorage) occupied the far right corner, and Bruce was at the far left corner. Interestingly, both Bruce and Minnie were CPAs; oddly enough, accounting was my PhD minor (we were all MIS majors). Bruce was further along his coursework than me, but I do recall we both took a brutal QMS research design course (most students preferred to take an easier doctoral course taught in the psychology department). I ended up with one of the 2 A's in the course, and Bruce was really sweating it out (because C's are not an option for doctoral students). I scanned the grade distribution, and I remember Bruce was thrilled when I told him the lowest grade was B/B-..
Research had always come easier to me, and I remember telling Bruce I could write poetry and short stories off the top of my head, and Bruce would say, "How does that work?" Bruce, however, was obsessed with the MBTI (Myers-Briggs, a cognitive style measure), something we often touched on during the MIS survey course. I didn't see cognitive style as explaining much variance, but Bruce thought it might explain issues in team cohesion, etc. I typed out much differently than Bruce, who was much more of a detailed, trees vs. forest kind of guy.
Bruce Breeding and his lovely wife Susan invited me, a bachelor, to family dinner on multiple occasions.
Bruce taught me racquetball but made me earn points against him. I don't think I ever won a game. He kicked my ass like 21-2. I still looked forward to our sessions. He and I had differing opinions on dealing with students. His students would wait until the last minute, and he could have a line of students going down the hallway. We had to cancel a few racquetball games. I remember telling him that he shouldn't reinforce procrastination by his students. But I admired his dedication.
I had always planned to work with Bruce on research stream, I finished a year or 2 before him, but I ran into nasty academic politics my first 2 years, and half the time my last 3 years trying to line up another job.
In a certain sense, we were unlikely friends. Bruce is a strict Baptist, while I'm a Roman Catholic, but Bruce respected my beliefs. One telling thing. usually at academic conferences like ICIS,there's a cocktail mixer (maybe coupons for a couple of drinks). I almost never drink at home or at a restaurant on my own. In social situations, I might order a glass of wine or beer or maybe a rum and coke. Bruce, of course, never had a drink--but he never raised the issue, moralized about liquor. He seemed very tolerant of other's choices, but he quietly stuck by his own beliefs.
He took a position at Murray State in Kentucky. I'm not sure what happened there (publish or perish?), but I can tell you if I had to build my own department from scratch, Bruce would have been my first draft choice. Not even close. Not only that, but the guy must have held like 8 or 9 industry certifications. I know at one point he expressed quiet frustration with the backgrounds of his incoming students. It had to be serious for him to raise the issue.
The funniest thing was when he left Kentucky and academia, he returned to the Dallas area and built a house in the same suburb where one of my sisters lived. That's where it turned out he met my 5 nephews because of working with the Boy Scouts. (All 5 nephews became Eagle Scouts.)
I think the last I had heard from them, I was using Bruce as a reference in government paperwork.. I think Bruce was working for a nonprofit in the Georgia area. He quit that because of some ethics issue he encountered,
My brother-in-law who is friended with Susan on Facebook alerted me to a link; ir aeems that Bruce suffered a minor stroke over the week, with a follow-up massive stroke at the hospital. Doctors don't think he'll recover to a functional lifestyle. He has not returned to conscientiousness since the initial stroke.
I'm heartbroken for my friend and his beautiful family.. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.
I lost my last paternal aunt similarly to a massive stroke.
