This article was linked to from a recent Brent Ozar PLC newsletter. It contains a bunch of tips about how to be a programmer(Not how to program, but how to be a programmer – the distinction is important). I think it was absolutely brilliant and has huge areas of crossover to other technical roles…such as DBA’s.
(Dead Link)http://samizdat.mines.edu/howto/HowToBeAProgrammer.html?x#id2855381(Dead Link)
I particularly liked the sections on how to deal with difficult people, how to provide estimates, and perhaps best was knowing when to go home:)
Sometimes peoples personal sites die and make a post like the above completely worthless. Unfortunately the link above is now dead, so I’ve made it non-clickable. Thanks to Tim jackson who let me know. Luckily Tim has been compiling another similar guide, so please support him by visiting it at http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/pro-programmer/