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System Administrator Appreciation Day
rmadmin writes "Yes, it's that time of year again! Today is the 5th annual Systems Administrator Appreciation Day! Show us admin's how much you love us. (Otherwise we may just walk out, It's been a long day) Happy Systems Administrator Day!" If any of the OSTG netops staff are reading this, thanks again for all your help in recent weeks.
For a couple years now I've been one of two de-facto sysadmins in a small operation, and I've definitely come to appreciate sysadmins much more than I did before.
It's hard work and the vast majority of it is tedious. Of course a really good sysadmin doesn't have to do much of anything on a day-to-day basis (having scripted everything up nicely), but when something tricky needs doing it's soooo much better to have a real admin on hand to spend the day doing it.
Next time I have a sysadmin who's not me, I'm definitely buying him/her a t-shirt and a beer on S.A.A.D.
(...though it would be nice to have a happier acronym)
This Like That - fun with words!
Guinness? ;)
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Romulan Ale or Aldeberan Whiskey
"I think so, Brain, but 'instant karma' always gets so lumpy." - Pinky
"Decepticons FOREVER!!!" - Ravage
You forgot a biggie: 36. When a supplier, be it of bandwidth, hardware, printer paper, etc. screws up, please get mad at us personally. We need the inspiration of your berating in order to effectively berate said supplier, and they need our berating because they love it when customers who 50% of the time ask for the wrong thing and get it, get even more upset the other 50% of the time when they're given what they actually needed in the first place.
"Only unimportant jobs such as secretaries and the like get their own "appreciation days".
If I were a sysadmin, I'd be insulted."
Actually, secretaries and sys admins fall into a line of work that requires them to work their asses off and receive little to no recognition for hard work when their users/bosses become successful.
I'd actually feel that appreciating them one day out of the year is a step in the right direction. Now for the other 364 days...
Sigs are for losers
The difference is, with Windows, you spend most of your time supporting the computer. With Linux, you spend most of your time supporting the user. Linux isn't a magic bullet which will melt away all your support problems! The user must be knowledgeable, or else you'll just waste even more time than Windows was already wasting.
While I understand your complaint against so-called "Hallmark Holidays" (so named because they are just an excuse to buy a Hallmark brand card) I think sysadmins really do deserve a day like this. By and large, most people's interaction with syadmins is to complain that something isn't working. No one ever walks up to a sysadmin and says "Hey, everything is working great today! Thanks for all you do!" (unless things have recently NOT been good). In this respect, sysadmins are very much like doctors or psychotherapists in that they have to deal with fixing things when the chips are down. These health workers, however, usually get lots of vacation time and very generous salaries to compensate for their stressful jobs -- something sysadmins typically do not enjoy.
Not only are sysadmins taken for granted but unlike others in that situation (e.g., secretaries) their job is one where people are constantly complaining to them. This makes them very unique and very underappreciated. I don't think it's too much to ask that for one day out of the year that people interact with their sysadmins in a positive manner.
GMD
watch this
If you were able to crash his server, it sounds like he wasn't doing his job very well. Maybe he's the one who should be banned.
It really is a shame the only ones who even know about (let alone recognize) system administrators day, are the system administrators.
Nah... you've got it all wrong. Ever consider that an "appreciation day" is simply a reminder to say "Hey, thanks"? Some people appreciate a pat on the back every now and then (apparently not you).