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"Sysadmin of the Year" Winners Announced
lisah writes "Ten winners of this year's 'Sysadmin of the Year' contest have been announced and, while Robin 'Roblimo' Miller says it's not quite like winning the Miss America contest, being selected from approximately 2,500 entrants is nothing to sneeze at. This year's first place winner battled an office fire to save a RAID backup server, while another IT manager won an honorable mention for his dedicated work at a yarn store. From the article, '[The nominating entry said:] Any man who would take on a position at a yarn store, much less a technological position while surrounded by a dozen women, ages 55+ deserves some kind of reward...'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.
The medieval equivalent of a stable boy
What do you want me to do, clap? I'd say ALL sysadmins are heros because they need to put up with a stupid userbase and inept managers that see their bottom line only.
... battled an office fire to save a RAID backup server ...
Of course, the sysadmin did have a complete backup set of tapes stored offsite? I would think that company could afford to let the hardware go up in smoke instead of facing a possible lawsuit if the sysadmin died on the job.
It's a thin line between winner and (ultimate) loser:
Scenario 1:
Man risks life to save RAID server, and lives.
Reward: System admin of year, free t-shirt, maybe a free watch from company at holiday party.
Scenario 2:
Man risks life to save RAID server, dies in process.
Reward: Gets mentioned in every system admin journal of something you should not do.
Scenario 3:
Man backs up RAID server to remote location and evacuates building before it collapses.
Reward: Lives fruitful life with wife and kids.
I know that Hindsight is 20/20, but it had to be said.
How many of the companies these men work for would backstab them in a second if it meant higher profits?
I read the winners and you have to kiss a lot of asses to get recommendations like that.
Where's the old BOFH spirit, people?
The profession is doomed.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Man has several minutes to evacuate the building as the fire is in another unit. Man casually grabs RAID server because off-site backups are a week old. (We really have no idea if there were off-site backups or not).
It's easy to imagine the panic scenario where the guy is risking his life for some dumb data, but the article doesn't really make it sound like that at all.
AccountKiller
Selfless sysadmin braves burning office to save the RAID backup?
You only have 1 life until cloning manages to get us to at least Human-RAID Level 1. One bad failure mode, and your flesh and blood hardware is at best non-functional (3rd degree burns) to a non-recoverable (dead).
Unless the industry in question is health-care, the military, nuclear power plant where actual lives are at stake, screw, screw, SCREW the RAID backup, or tape library, or whatever. In the aforementioned industries, you damn well better have disaster recovery planning, current offsite backups, and a whole host of other risk mitigation, management and recovery strategies.
The company goes out of business? Too bad, so sad, but your life is more precious than that. I can always get another job. My wife and kids will not be able to replace me as easily.
Really. This sounds more like a nominee for a Darwin award, rather than a Sysadmin award.
I'm disgusted that such opinions are casually treated as acceptable in this day and age.
Well since it was written by 55+ year old women I'd give them some slack as they grew up in a different age and time.
The one sysadmin said: "Asked if he had any advice for aspiring sysadmins, Thomas said, "Back up, back up, back up -- and plan for the absolute worst."" Shouldn't he have had a off-site backup if was really following good admin practices? Why run into a burning building...
'Reboot and try again' is often valid advice when dealing with technology that routinely fouls up its memory state so as to become unusable. If it's not said to the men, perhaps it should be. What do they get told, "It's broken, you're screwed!"?
...is people going into rooms with fires to rescue equipment or backups. People just don't realize how poisonous/noxious the fumes are from burning electronics; they think they can hold their breath, except they get a small whiff of the fumes up their nose, or need to take another breath because of exertion (that box of tapes wasn't as easy to find as they thought)- cough, suck in a nice big breath of poisonous smoke, and collapse a few seconds later. Poisonous fumes stick around even after a fire is out. Wait for the fire department to come and declare the room and building SAFE. If you need something specific, ask the dude with the SCBA pack to go and get it for you; if there's no serious danger to them, they'll probably oblige.
The infamous Blue Book warns clearly and repeatedly that backups should NEVER be stored in the same room because of these dangers. Employees/managers feel too tempted to do shit exactly like what "Sean Thomas" did.
If there is a fire, GET THE FUCK OUT. Period. Companies have insurance and should have off-site backups for this kind of stuff, and it's not your fault if they don't. It's also much better to be alive and living off unemployment or looking for a new job, than in the ER with no job...or dead.
Side note: is it just me, or was this "competition" just a stupid submitting of resumes with "nominations", and "be a good little worker bee" crap? "Michael Beck is a young go getter. The word "no" and phrase "I can't" are not in his vocabulary." Gimme a break...
Please help metamoderate.