People have strong feelings about SQL Server Management Studio: they love it AND they hate it. In this week's episode, I talk about why people have such conflicting feelings about SSMS, and how to work it all out.

A query is slow, and you figure out how to collect the query execution plan. Now what? In this episode I talk "big picture" about what execution plans are, what "cost" is, why to collect "compiled for" values, and the steps I take to analyze execution plans while performance tuning queries.

As a SQL Server DBA, do you need to be a killer with scripts? In this episode I talk about how much you need to know about PowerShell, and examples of ways I personally use (and struggle with) PowerShell.

I'll be attending and presenting at the SQL PASS Summit in Seattle Washington this year from Oct 31-Nov 3. In this week's episode, I share why I'm excited about going, and why I've purchased a seat for a pre-conference session. (Spoiler: pre-cons are awesome!) I also give my tips on how to get the MOST value out of a big conference like the PASS Summit.

Over the years, readers have asked me: "How do you stay motivated?" Sticking with a learning plan, blogging, or becoming a public speaker isn't easy. In this episode I share how I think about motivation and what keeps me going.

This week's question from a reader: how do I deal with interview questions asking about real-world scenarios when I've faked three years of experience on my resume?

In this episode, I talk about three articles written by members of the SQL Server community on interviewing that I can't stop thinking about: "Playing the Third Party Recruiter Game", by Adam Machanic - http://sqlblog.com/blogs/adam_machanic/archive/2017/08/08/playing-the-third-party-recruiter-game-t-sql-tuesday-093.aspx "I Hate Interviews", by Rob Sewell - https://sqldbawithabeard.com/2017/08/08/i-hate-interviews-tsql2sday/ "Learning to say 'No'" by Mark Broadbent - https://tenbulls.co.uk/2017/08/08/learning-to-say-no/

Hear the story of an interview where my dreams were crushed - and what I learned about interviewing from the experience.

You've got some troubling wait stats in SQL Server. How can you tell which queries are causing those waits? Kendra discusses the pros and cons of different techniques to track down the cause of both common and tricky waits in SQL Server, including CXPACKET, PAGEIOLATCH, LCK, RESOURCE_SEMAPHORE, and THREADPOOL waits.

If you need to add, remove, or replace hints from ad-hoc queries and you can't change the code, plan guides can help. See a demo of removing hints from parameterized TSQL run from an application, and get tips on how to make your plan guides work in SQL Server. Get code samples from this episode here: https://sqlworkbooks.com/2017/05/removing-query-hints-with-plan-guides-dear-sql-dba-episode-43/