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Sysadmin Day. Yay.
Izeickl writes "The BBC is running an article about sysadmin day. One admin is quoted saying, 'We are unappreciated and no-one knows what we do for 364 days of the year.' Apparently even the online greeting cards are getting in on the action check out 123Greetings.com and put a smile on that cranky admins face! The starter of this day also has a page here." Well, most competent sysadmins probably have electronic greeting cards blocked at the router, but I suppose it's the thought that counts... Jeremy Sieminski submits a Mouse Pad Couch as the appropriate place for a sysadmin to rest his weary, uh, wrists. And of course if you've never read the BOFH stories, you're missing out.
Programmer: "Server's down!"
Sysadmin: "Thanks, server's down to you too!"
=== "Some people see the glass as half-empty. Others see it as half-full. I see the glass as too big." -G. Carlin.
The only true way to appreciate a good sysadmin is to leave them alone for one day. Don't talk to them, don't flood his mailbox with some stupid ass HTML email, don't try to hug them, don't ask them a stupid question, don't blame the network for your incompetence at clicking on links, stop opening spam, stop forwarding around 3meg powerpoint attachments comprised of dilbert comics, stop trying to pretend you get it (when it is anything computer or tech related), and for god's sake don't pretend you understand what it is like to be on call 24x7... in short:
GO AWAY
Now that is some serious appreciation.
--- I do not moderate.
Admiration? Adoration? Acknowledgement? A sysadmin craves not these things.
If those are the things you want, J Crew Boy, you are in the *wrong* line of work.
The tradeoff of getting to do your thing with others that are like minded (or solo) in an enviornment that is very much your own and on one bothers you is that no one knows what you do (or cares..let's face it) until it's broken and they run at you like they are on fire in trade for a job where you get to do something you are good at, get paid for, and get to play with new toys all the time.
Appreciate me by not sending 100M email attachments to distribution lists. That'll do.
Whenever I felt unappreciated as a sysadmin, I would set up my old rocking chair in the server room. After a peaceful afternoon spent in the gentle breeze of server fans, and with a few critical cables running underneath my chair as I eased back and forth, everyone in the building knew what I did...
Now if you're a bad sysadmin, you're always fixing things up and braking other things at the same time so you're always doing overtime so eventually your boss hire people to help you, you become those people manager's so you let them fix all the stuff you broke and read slashdot all day in the mean time, but with a hiher pay and job security.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Let's see a sysadmin do the work of a construction worker at the construction worker's wage and see just how appreciated the sysadmin feels when he returns to his air conditioned cave with net access and computer toys and a paycheck three to four times as large as the manual laborer.
Says the RIAA: When you EQ, you're stealing bass!
I run to the flames when others flee.
I slay Cisco, RAID and PowerPoint enemies.
I retreat in darkness until called again.
You need not know my name, for I am legion...
The parent post has some good points but its tone reminds me of some unfortunate tendancy in the IT world: the beliefs that technical prowess does exempts you from offering good customer service, and that anyone who doesn't understand computers must be stupid. While I'd like to indulge the day and let venting occur - I have to deal with self righteous IT folks every day.
Regarding "Stupid questions": A huge ammount of time is wasted at my company because not enough people are asking stupid questions. They just keep doing stupid things. If you don't like to answer stupid questions, make sure that your company has a help desk (or person, depending on the scale) who's job it is answer stupid questions. Stupid questions are the oil in the corporate machine. I consider it my job to turn stupid questions into smart ones.
Arrogance: - keywords incompetence, etc: yes, a lot of people with valuable skills grew up without computers. I know a lot of IT people who think that because they understand discreet mathematics, they understand business rules better than the managers who work with them. We've lost a lot of money that way. More frequently than a lay person not understanding the network, is the problem that the guy coding business logic into the mainframes, didn't understand the point made by the non-technical manager.
If you have problems with misuse of resources on your network - you have to deal with the human element and work with trainers / managers. Where training fails, quotas. It's a simple management issue. Every job has them. Don't whine, solve it.
Sorry, geeks. You can't isolate yourself from the humans you work with. I actually consider it one of the pleasures of the job to work both with humans and their problems, and machines and theirs.
Note: I've worked on various sides of the system administration fence. I've been soley responsible for a small (50 device) network, and user in a large one. Currently an informal part of my job is to act as buffer/liason/interpreter between IT and business process. I appreciate my current sys-admin specifically because he makes his knowledge available, has a system to handle stupid questions, and recognizes that there are skills of value not learnt in the CS department. I think I'll give a basket of fresh fruit and a hug.
My motto: "A cat is no trade for integrity."