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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.
Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.
I dunno who OSTG is, but they must be pretty awesome. They pwned Slashdot and Linux.com!
Oh, c'mon. I think we all know what his "Cocoon-like" reward was.
" 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...'""
It could have been worse. The yarn store could have burst into flames.
no bathing suit contest segment, PLEASE!
... 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.
The winner got "Washington DC"? The whole thing? Man, I knew OSTG had major league pull, but that's amazing! ;-)
Note to Michael Beck - Now that you own Washington DC, please replace Congress, the Supreme Court and the President with a few Beowulf clusters. We should see a marked improvement in performance.
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.
Why, I take very good care of my users. In fact, I wouldn't have a job without them, right? I mean, I support the computers they use, and without them the computers wouldn't NEED any support. In fact, I just had a brand new backup system installed in our halon-protected server room. It's there to ensure that any data they find valuable will always be available. Go ahead, step in and take a look for yourself. It's right there in the back row, about halfway down.
No, really, I insist. Have a look.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
He is expected to perform greater miracles in the future! afterall the sysadmin of the year should be able to fix anything!
"The computer doesn't work, fix it asshole, its your fault, you're the computer guy!"
"My password was 'iloveu' and now all my stuffs are gone, put them back you asshole!"
"I cant login to my account, I don't remember the password, fix it asshole!"
"The computer deleted my emails, put them back you asshole, now!!!"
You should be able to handle all four of these user requests at the same time, and resolve them all yesterday. If you don't people will wonder why they are paying extra to have the sys admin of the year, and will fire you and replace you with some one else at a lower payscale.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
That's a quote from Janice Yamamoto, The woman who nominated him. ...Just so you know.
The Statue of Liberty is America's lawn jockey.
The only reason I can think of for risking one's life to save a RAID array is if you hadn't taken proper backups and stored them offsite. If that is the case, then the guy hardly deserves a "Sysadmin of the Year" award. Basically, he'd be getting an award for doing a brave yet foolish thing in order to cover for his lack of planning.
I think he made the rational decision that he would rather burn to death than wait for the new server hardware to arrive, and then wait for file restores to finish, all while people dropped in every 2 minutes to ask when the server would be back up.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Some companies aren't fortunate enough to have large hardware budgets. In fact, smaller companies operating on a shoestring are lucky to even afford the minimal hardware for day-to-day operations, much less setup a RAID server. As mentioned in the SAOTY submission, everyone else walked out of the burning building with their desktops - the sacrifice is that Sean took out the backup server to safety and let his own personal computer burn up in the fire. Yes, by personal I do mean that the company did not even provide a computer for the job. So, it was either take the RAID out or face telling 20 people that that was their last day of employment. The personal computer was where all our digital music (all legal I might add) was actually kept. ;-)
And just to give a scope of how devastating this fire actually was, noone in that building was allowed back in to salvage anything due to structural instability. Everything whether it might have been salvageable or not was bulldozed over. Without that backup machine, there would have been no hope picking the company up out of the ashes.
Some sysadmins have to work with what they are given. When you are given very little - in terms of hardware, budgets, and even a competitive salary - you have to make the best of things and just make it work.