Slashdot Mirror
System Administrator Appreciation Day
jcookeman writes "Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day: 'a special day, once a year, to acknowledge the worthiness and appreciation of the person occupying the role, especially as it is often this person who really keeps the wheels of your company turning.' Congratulations to all who keep the electrons of our global networks flowing properly!"
Now, get back to work, Michael! Yes, YOU!
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Developers and SysAdmins are mortal enemies! What's with this "Appreciation" stuff?
(I kid, I kid!)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
No, really,internet goes down today if there's not something on my desk by noon.
Video Phone Blogs send video messages straight to the web.
Wish everyone a Happy SAD day. Watch the confusion spread across their faces..
Our sysadmin(s) blocked the site! They must not want to be appriciated.
We will keep re-defining success until we are sucessful.
you're so buried in emergencies you won't be able to enjoy it...
next Friday is Hawaiian shirt day, so if you want, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.
Looks kinda like my younger sisters Geocities site.
I usually take the network administrators for granted and I think that's a testament to the great work that they do. Like the best technology, the best system administrators run so smoothly that you don't even think about them.
I've been lucky in that every company that I've worked at has had very professional and very knowledgeable system administrators. I know there are a lot of system administrators on this site. I'd like to take this opportunity to say Thank you.
I'll be sure to kick the ethernet cable out of the wall and "forget" my password just for them.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie made The System Admin Song. You can get it (and many other funny songs & skits) from their artist page on ampcast.com.
Join moola.com, play games to earn money.
They get no appreciation from me until they fix my @#^%$ automatic cupholder!
Now where are the hookers and beer? Bring me your finest meats and cheeses or I shall be forced to pipe all email through a jive translator.
Do not taunt Happy-Fun Ball
Shockingly enough, Hallmark provides a "reminder" service. As Homer would say "Mmmm....capitalism". Of course, you have to give them your e-mail address, but hey, that's the price you pay.
Why are Sys Admins (and secretaries, I suppose) singled out for their own special day?
Because they are traditionally the touchiest and thinnest-skinned groups within any corporation?
ThaT Is SO uNTruE. SurELY yoU'D feEL it If ThEy VibRAteD...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I swear, every year at the end of July we get the same "Sysadmin Appreciation Day" story. Can't the editors search the archives!!?!?
here's the problem, as i see it: don't we have a lot of these days already? boss's day, secretary's day, etc.? i mean, you wanna talk about scope creep, folks, and here we see it w/ days set aside for pretty much everything.
i'm not saying admins, bosses & secretaries don't deserve a special day set aside to recognize the ways in which they're helpful (hopefully!) and are appreciated: they do. what i'm saying is that isn't this really true of everybody, though, regardless of job title of responsibilities?
ed
My Systems
... for the poor saps in businesses too small to have their own IT department, but who nevertheless get the honour of running round like a tit every time a company director claims the Interweb is broken... IN ADDITION to doing their regular job.
Me, jealous? Hell yeah. Last week I had to try to recover some data from a dead machine by taking the hard drive out and sticking it in the fridge. Without having the correct size screwdriver, so I had to fudge around with my Swiss army knife and a pair of mini-pliers. (They're a bit bitey.)
I wouldn't have minded too much but when I sent an email round asking staff not to disturb the extra-large ice-pop in the freezer, I made a reference to MacGyver and got two dozen emails back in the space of five minutes asking what the f*ck I was talking about or claiming to be too young to know what the f*ck i was talking about.
Come on. I deserve cake too, don't I?
-Michael
Ok...that's as much appreciation as I gonna get. Now I have to get back to randomly switching the routers on and off.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
I take offense to that.
--Chag
...They shouted back, "No, not him! Give us Barabbas!"
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
we can slashdot the S.A.D. website to show how much we care.
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
I'm suprised that the gift suggestion list doesn't have any alcoholic beverages listed.
additions:
Beer (good stuff, not colored water)
Scotch (that's single malt, not something you'd mix, and older than 12years please)
"We are not tolerant people. We prefer drastically effective solutions"
Funny... Hallmark doesn't seem to have a card for this.
AHHHHHH!!!! It's a consultant!! Bring out the water cannons!!!
...is by deleting the accounts of users who refuse to celebrate it.
"Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day!"
"Happy what?"
"Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day..."
"You're making that up, aren't you?"
"No, I'm not." *deletes user's account*
Hope be with ye,
Cyan
Secretary might profit.
Perhaps you are correct, but I would suggest that you consider one other possibility:
Sysadmins have one of the most thankless jobs in the world.
I only administrate my own home network. If I am at home, I am ON the network. if there are network problems, I am always the first to know.
Yet, I have my own phone line, and as soon as there is any hint of trouble with the network, my phone starts ringing. Maybe sysadmins are a touchy bunch, but you know what? 100% uptime is impossible. And anything less than that makes you the complaint department. It is nice to know that at least one day out of the year, there will be some people who think "ya know, he couldn't have prevented that DDoS attack, but hey, he did what he could to defend against it."
My whole point is that the sysadmin often looks like the bad guy, simply for delivering the messages, and in spite of all his hard work... well, let me put it this way. My ISP (Comcast) works well *most* of the time. Quite coincidentally, I had connectivity problems for ~20 minutes this morning. Did i think "Goddamn those motherfuckers?" You bet your bippies I did. Because I, like anybody else, do not appreciate it when things stop working. On the shoulders of a good administrator lies the weight of the world. He's not perfect. And nobody likes when stuff breaks. And when he fixes it, nobody cares. They're still pissed off that it was broken at all.
So... are we really touchy? maybe. Maybe we just hate it when people click "OK" on every goddamned popup window, javascript dialog window, or banner ad that happens to resemble a windows dialog window (just like my dad), and then act like it is *my* fault for fucking up his machine.
I've been dealing with that kind of attitude towards the IT department for 3 years now.
Two and a half weeks ago I was offered a position that gave me a 50% pay increase, a plethora of kick-ass benefits, and all at a place that does commercial IT support. Two weeks ago today I turned in my two-week notice, so that on Systems Administrator Appreciation Day, I would be having the last laugh!
Ok, I'm over-egging it slightly, but offhand I can't think of many other occupations where every essential system the company uses is under your purview and where one mistake can hose whole sections of the company and lose man-weeks of working time.
Sysadmins probably have the least-recognised job in the company - when they're doing their jobs well you never even notice they're there, and the only time you notice their existence is when something goes wrong. And when it does all the blame generally falls on the sysadmin for not preventing it (no matter how stupid, unlikely or unforeseeable "it" is).
I should probably point out I haven't done a lot of sysadminning for several years, but I remember vividly the irritation caused by idiot managers and clueless users ("Yeah. Uh, I deleted my Program Files directory, and when I ran Excel it had an error, and it mentioned Windows, so I deleted my Windows folder, and now it keeps on giving errors... Oh, and I have a presentation to finish for 16:00").
I also remember the incredibly frustrating attitude many users seemed to have - that you were there solely for their convenience, rather than to maintain the system that keeps the entire company running.
Sysadmins, I salute you.
Footnotes:
[1] Obviously this depends on the size and complexity of the network (and how well you've got it set up), but in general I think "sysadminning" is harder than (say) "accounts", in terms of diversity of skills required and sheer amount of time you have to spend teaching yourself new things every week.
[2] Although everyone who's ever worked in an office appreciates it, there's a reason Dilbert works in IT. Whether it's because the underlings' jobs are so obscurely technical, or because IT just attracts managers who are fuckwits, the PHB-quotient in IT is easily ten times any other discipline in the company.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
But that does bring up a great idea: send hot secretaries!
They are one of the groups that if they do their jobs really well, you don't tend to notice, you only notice when they screw up, or when they are gone (janitors are the same way). I mean if the developers do a great job and create a great product, it gets noticed, if the marketing guys come up with a way to market things that increases sales, it gets noticed. However if the network and servers are running perfectly smoothly for a year, peopel just get accustomed to everything working properly and don't notice. They don't notice until something goes wrong, then they are angry.
So it's just a nice way to remember the people that make it easy and efficient to do your job. Now maybe yours don't, but if you work in an environment where the servers are reliable, systems work smoothly, etc, then you have sysadmins who are doing their job well.
I'm appreciative of the fact that I'm no longer a sysadmin. Does that count?
Does this include "De Facto" System Administrators? Those of us who work for companies/people too small and/or too cheap to actually hire a system administrator? Who instead ask us to do the work, because we can usually figure things out, even though it takes time away from the jobs we're actually supposed to be doing (and takes valuable time away from reading /. as well)? Who at the same time consider our best advice to be entirely optional ("Don't click on links you get in spam." "Don't mass-forward cute stories someone else forwarded to you" "When someone dials zero, they should actually reach a human" "Convert our Windows servers to Unix/MacOS because they'll just work better, especially with no sysadmin" "Hire a sysadmin" etc.) because we aren't "experts".
Here's to you (and me) Mr. De Facto System Administrator.
I used to ask my mother why we had Mother's Day and Father's Day but no Children's Day.
She said "Every day is Children's Day, you little shit!" and smacked me upside the head.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
So when are the appreciation days for CEOs, Parking Enforcement Officers, documentation writers, municipal works engineers, etc, etc, etc. Where do you draw the line, or decide who gets an appreciation day? Is the world so full of groups of pathetic people that they need this kind of attention? Or has everybody become so self-absorbed and selfish that they need to reminded of others? Or perhaps it's just self-important people trying to promote themselves and have their egos stroked. Personally I endeavour to appreciate everybody and be nice and considerate to all around me. If we all make more of an effort to think of others than these appreciation days are irrelevant.
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~moose/sysadmin/ pricelist.html
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
True story...
Our small company had to restructure it's in-house networks to accomodate a whole bunch of new equipment. It was a mess for a while (unreachable mail servers, backup systems not functioning, etc) but our tireless admin worked 10+ hours a day and weekends for 2 weeks straight. After everything was settled, some of us guys decided to take him out for lunch in appreciation of all his hard work... but not just any restaurant, this was a sort of strip club (albeit tame compared to others) that served lunch during the work week. Anyways, the lunch went well but apperantly one of the secretaries told his wife. Their marriage had been shaky for a while and in 3 months time he was deep into divorce proceedings. From what I hear, it was a pretty messy one, including losing out custody of their kid. Shortly afterwards he had to move because of financial problems. He had also been accused, at one point, of stealing some equipment so he didn't leave on very good terms.
So Tom, whereever you are now, in whatever river-side van, happy System Administrators Day!
Being one I won't guess at whether sysadmins are considered thin-skinned or not.
However, your opinion that secretaries are touchy and thin-skinned only shows that your concept of "secretary" comes from 60s sitcoms. Get real. A secretary is the person you go to when you actually want something done. Not talked about endlessly in meetings or pointed to some large bureaucratic process, but just done, now. They certainly have thicker skins than developers.
All true wisdom can be found in sigs.
or banner ad that happens to resemble a windows dialog window (just like my dad)
Your dad resembles a dialogue box?
... If we did, we'd wouldn't be in the field.
;)
What we need is root, coffee and chocolate.
And guns. BIG FUCKING GUNS!!!!
(and money
Actually, my understanding of those who complain the most about sys admins are the ones who don't know what you do. PHB-types would be my guess. I hope anyone with 1/2 a sense of computers understand how hard it is to do what you do. Those people who complain and hit OK for a free iPod? They deserve all the crap that happens to them and their computers.
In short, i hope all of you admins out there know that the people like (most of) us here, know what you go through and appreciate it.
Now, can you open port 8080 for me?
I forgot what I wanted to say, but honestly, it was important.
From the "advice for employees" page. We were all laughing (along with the COO of the company)
________________________________________________
Advice to employees on the proper use
of the System Administrator's valuable time
(In following examples, we will substitute the name "Ted" as the System Administrator)
Make sure to save all your MP3 files on your network drive. No sense in wasting valuable space on your local drive! Plus, Ted loves browsing through 100+ GB of music files while he backs up the servers.
Play with all the wires you can find. If you can't find enough, open something up to expose them. After you have finished, and nothing works anymore, put it all back together and call Ted. Deny that you touched anything and that it was working perfectly only five minutes ago. Ted just loves a good mystery. For added effect you can keep looking over his shoulder and ask what each wire is for.
Never write down error messages. Just click OK, or restart your computer. Ted likes to guess what the error message was.
When talking about your computer, use terms like "Thingy" and "Big Connector."
If you get an EXE file in an email attachment, open it immediately. Ted likes to make sure the anti-virus software is working properly.
When Ted says he coming right over, log out and go for coffee. It's no problem for him to remember your password.
When you call Ted to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under a year-old pile of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, unpaid bills, bowling trophies and Popsicle sticks. Ted doesn't have a life, and he finds it deeply moving to catch a glimpse of yours.
When Ted sends you an email marked as "Highly Important" or "Action Required", delete it at once. He's probably just testing some new-fangled email software.
When Ted's eating lunch at his desk or in the lunchroom, walk right in, grab a few of his fries, then spill your guts and expect him to respond immediately. Ted lives to serve, and he's always ready to think about fixing computers, especially yours.
When Ted's at the water cooler or outside taking a breath of fresh air, find him and ask him a computer question. The only reason he takes breaks at all is to ferret out all those employees who don't have email or a telephone.
Send urgent email ALL IN UPPERCASE. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.
When the photocopier doesn't work, call Ted. There's electronics in it, so it should be right up his alley.
When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at your home computer, call Ted. He enjoys fixing telephone problems from remote locations. Especially on weekends.
When something goes wrong with your home PC, dump it on Ted's chair the next morning with no name, no phone number, and no description of the problem. Ted just loves a good mystery.
When you have Ted on the phone walking you through changing a setting on your PC, read the newspaper. Ted doesn't actually mean for you to DO anything. He just loves to hear himself talk.
When your company offers training on an upcoming OS upgrade, don't bother to sign up. Ted will be there to hold your hand when the time comes.
When the printer won't print, re-send the job 20 times in rapid succession. That should do the trick.
When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to all the printers in the office. One of them is bound to work.
Don't use online help. Online help is for wimps.
Don't read the operator's manual. Manuals are for wussies.
If you're taking night classes in computer science, feel free to demonstrate your fledgling expertise by updating the network drivers for you and all your co-workers. Ted will be grateful for the overtime when he has to stay until 2:30am fixing all of them.
When Ted's fixing your computer at a quarter past one, eat your Whopper with cheese in his face. He functions better when he's slightly dizzy from hunger.
When Ted asks you whether you've installed any new software on your computer, LIE. It's n
I always told my team that if we (the admins) do our job right, nobody knows we are here.
:)
Kind of a two edged sword when budget time comes around. That's why it is always good to have a network traffic generator connected to the network that can be switched on and off easily.
We've been enjoying the day just fine. The .wav files playing back on the phone support line are just small shell scripts we wrote to respond to the predictable user questions, should you have any. If you manage to have an actual problem that the scripts can't handle they'll forward to our pagers and cell phones. No calls so far today. Hey, be thankful you have internal support to call on; you could be talking to someone with an Indian accent who doesn't even understand your keyboard layout...
We're down at the local alehouse where they have 150 beers on tap, sampling our favorites out on the deck. It's a balmy 70'F, perfect outdoor eating weather. May I suggest starting with a pitcher of Hoegaarden, then moving on to Blue Moon, then Spaten Optimator, and finishing with a solid Beamish Oatmeal stout? (This is, of course, assuming you must return to the office today, which many of us will not.) Those of us who aren't into beer are enjoying a few fine martinis and daquiris, shooting the breeze over what backup solution to use next year or what new tech gadgets are on the market.
If you want to show your system administrator some love, all you need do is read his emails to the company when they are sent out, and actually respond to them. That's it. That will make most of us deliriously happy, not just today, but any day.
Tech gadgets are nice, but it's rather embarassing for you to buy them for us... we don't let our parents shop gadgets for us, and it's best you don't try either. Gift certificates are king. It's a rare geek who understands what his fellow geeks need.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
I believe you've just replaced the Slashdot editors with a tiny bash script.
"So when is Database Administrator Appreciation Day?"
Uhh, every time they get paid $500 for a day's work?