Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day!

saintp writes "In case you forgot, today is System Administrator Appreciation Day. Be sure to appreciate your sysadmin with some sweet schwag, a LOPSA membership, or even some theme cupcakes. Here's to all the sysadmins out there! Now I've got to go fix the mail server...." Update: 07/28 17:44 GMT by H :And remember that you can vote/nominate them for SysAdmin of the Year.

Comments

Payday = Appreciation Day where I work

[lecithin]

A paycheck is all the appreciation that I expect.

Today is Payday.

For some reason, I don't think that this is going to get as big as mother's day.

I know that there is going to be some bitching about how many sysadmins aren't appreciated. Well, you could always work at Mcdonalds.

Re:Payday = Appreciation Day where I work

[Qzukk]

A paycheck is all the appreciation that I expect.

If the worth of your life is a paycheck, then I'm sure you're pleased with yourself, and I'm happy for you.

Personally, I believe that I shouldn't have to negotiate with HR for "perks" like "treat me like the human I am".

Re:Payday = Appreciation Day where I work

[0racle]

Your not a human entitled to respect, you are a human resource no different then any other resource to the company.

Re:Payday = Appreciation Day where I work

[mebollocks]

Obviously you're not a sysadmin. Payday is the day employees of a company get paid for their time and labour. All employees have payday. A sysadmin's job however is one of constant battle with people's over-expectation. The cleaners and janitors are more appreciated and get more polite conversation from other employees than sysadmins.

Well yes it's what I asked for but it's not what I wanted!

There is a strange sense of over-entitlement for employees of a company when it comes to IT, this goes for programmers as well as sysadmins.
Of course it will never be as big as mother's day. Mother's are far more deserving of appreciation than any employee.
So those that have arranged a response to the lack of human empathy to IT workers should get a job in McDonalds? Well done, you've solved the problem, congratulations.
If you're a sysadmin, no doubt you're familiar with the phenomenon of 2 different people coming to your desk at the same time and talking over each other, at the same time, about 2 completely different requests, never once acknowledging each other, both completely convinced of their enitilement to whine at you about how their laptop isn't bling enough or their quota is too small and their time is too valuable to clean up.
Nowhere else would such behaviour be tolerated.
Has anyone ever approached their facilties department and asked for a bigger desk because they don't have the time to tidy it?
Sure, you've got some admins that subscribe to the book of bofh, never realising that maintenance of productivity is their sole reason to have a job but these are the exception especially more recently, as management get more clued in to IT.

Ask any employee, Finance, HR, Corporate, if they think they're appreciated enough and the answer will be no. But none of these groups are expected to be available 24*7, train themselves constantly, be on-demand during office hours to all and sundry, behave as if they're responsible for everything that happens within their department, always be patient, take time away from their complex SAN restructure to show how to re-sync a wireless mouse... blah blah... I could go on forever.

This day exists for a reason since 2000.

Re:Payday = Appreciation Day where I work

[ConceptJunkie]

The day I meet an HR department that acts like it is capable of recognizing a human, then I will agree with your statement.

Personally, I believe that if the HR department isn't actively trying to sabotage your job, you're ahead of the game.

Re:Payday = Appreciation Day where I work

[FST777]

Has anyone ever approached their facilties department and asked for a bigger desk because they don't have the time to tidy it?

For some reason, folk at work think I'm the facilities too. And yes, they keep bugging me to change their desk (in height) whenever they feel like. Maybe it's something in our genes (crosslinked with capability for being sysadmin): Bug me! I want it!

Sidenote: you are absolutely correct. Sysadmins are undervaluated. Secretaries get more day-to-day appreciation, and yet secretary-day is more broadly celebrated. Other odd thing: my wife is a nurse, and there exists a nurse-day here. At her work, secretary-day was celebrated with a day off for all secretaries and activities in a theme-park, payed by management. On nurse-day, there was cake, paid by the workers organization.

When they asked me at work if I would do something on secretary-day, I said no, and explained why. They kinda understood me.

A good quote from "The Incredibles"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Helen: Everyone's special, Dash.
Dash: Which is another way of saying no-one is.

Hard to Find a Good SysAdmin

[airrage]

This is definitely an area of IT that has suffered lately with outsourcing. I find that the issue is really that, at least in my experience in Corporate America, that the SysAdmin role has a interesting career ladder. Generally, my biggest gripe is finding someone who is well rounded in experience. Somehow, seems people are missing some major skill set like the ability to talk to another human being or empathy (just kidding). Actually, what I find is a big reluctance to change.

Alas, we suffer on.

Peace Out.

Re:I tried to send my sysadmin a thank you e-card.

[sharkey]

No, it's because we block all that e-card shitware at the network edge. Intestinal parasites dug up from the festering bowels of the Internet do not belong on my network, thank you very much.

Show your sysadmin your appreciation by NOT slumming through the sleaziest shitholes on the 'net using his resources.

No love for helpdesk?

[SoundGuyNoise]

I emailed the founders of Sys Admin day a couple years ago, and asked if helpdesks were included in the appreciation. He said no, maybe we can get our own holiday.

We are the gatekeepers. We're on the front lines, sweating it with our phone headsets and standard issue network access. Meanwhile the big wig admins kick back in their air conditioned servers rooms.

Re:Schwag? What about Nugs?

[really?]

Of course you would be fired. As you should. (One gives the admins good stuff, and there is nothing better than BC bud.)

I get the whole day off!

[dbIII]

Oh wait - it's Saturday over here, I managed to take a day off on Saturday a few weeks ago too. If sysadmins were paid overtime rates instead of salary we would be expensive beasts.