Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day

An anonymous reader writes "Today is the 8th annual System Administrator Appreciation Day. It is always the last Friday in July and is the one day that SysAdmins are supposed to get the respect they deserve to be getting the other 364 days of the year. Today is the day that we wish everyone would considering the daunting tasks, small budgets, and ridiculous timelines that many SysAdmins face all year. Please thank them for everything they do for you and for your business. If you think you have a great SysAdmin today would be the day to nominate them for SysAdmin of the Year. 'The idea for System Administrator Day was inspired by a print ad for a Hewlett-Packard laser jet printer. The ad showed lines of employees bringing gifts for the IT guy who made the purchase. System Administrator Appreciation Day has, over the years, garnered support from many organizations."

Comments

I Choose Not to Participate

[eldavojohn]

I don't care for this. They get paid for their job. They get a 'thank you' from me and other people. They don't act like my servant, they give me more crap than I give them, they're not here at all hours of the night when I'm coding to help me, they don't care whether I succeed, etc. It's not like they're an administrative assistant (Secretary's Day) to one person who needs to show them some appreciation once a day.

Why do System Administrators get a day? Why not Database Administrators? Why not Systems Architects? Why not Software Developers? All of these people are needed just as much as any of the others to achieve success.

System Administrators must be much different at other companies because I haven't met one that I've particularly thought deserves a whole freaking day devoted to celebrating them.

If you can read this, thank your sysadmin Yeah, and when do you think the Software Developer who made and maintains the page, the web browser, the web server and the operating systems of both the client and host? Gee, it's not hard to recognize that everyone contributes a vital need to meet a goal. If they didn't, they wouldn't be on the team!

Flamebait, I know ... but I had to get that off my chest.

Re:I Choose Not to Participate

[SlamMan]

Probably because at any place that's not an IT company (and under a thousand people), all of those jobs are the same 1-5 guys.

Re:I Choose Not to Participate

[TrippTDF]

I'm the sole IT person at this company (it's very non-technical), and I view my role as simultaneously janitor and wizard of oz- people need me to do things, but don't know what it is that they want. They consider me beneath them, but need my level of knowledge in order to get things done. More often than not, I'm seen as an obstacle to getting things done. Although, from where I sit, their expectations are so far off base with reality I need to try and reign them in, which they don't like. People don't see that I'm argueing a logistical/technical impossiblility with them, and think I'm just "pushing back" so I don't have to do any work. In truth, I'm happy to work as long as everyone is on the same page.

This turned into more of rant that I thought it would.

Re:I Choose Not to Participate

[PONA-Boy]

Around here, we make SAAD a general IS Department event...everyone geeks out and generally enjoys themselves.

For all of the people who are so adamantly opposed to _any_ sort of "day" for technology professionals...meh. People have birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, funerals, etc, and they are all commemorated in some fashion. I think of SAAD as a good occasion to relax for a day and enjoy things. For the rest of the work year, we will all be trudging about dealing with problems, what is the big objection with having ONE day out of the year where we recognize our achievements even if no-one else does. It is a way of building esprit du corps and good feelings across departments.

(as an aside)
So many frackin' people (I find this especially true in the US) are so hell-bent on being unhappy these days. They want to piss in everyone's Cheerios because they can't be happy...why should anyone ELSE be happy? The last I heard, we all have a time-limit on our existence on this planet, why would you want to spend it being frackin' unhappy? Relax a little people! Loosen that knot around your neck and enjoy just being alive for a moment.

*sheesh*

PONA

Re:I Choose Not to Participate

[jessecurry]

This is exactly the attitude that causes the GP to have no positive feelings towards sysadmins.
Why would you be petty and vindictive? You have a small amount of power in an artificial system, lose the god complex. If you were to do anything like this you'd more than likely be fired anyways and go back to being your normal self.

Any time I've been tasked as a sysadmin I've made it a point to treat all my users with respect and take the extra moment to explain things if it seemed like the user wanted to know a little more. Those actions gained me real respect and power.
If you want appreciation as a sysadmin start treating the users that you administer with more respect and make sure that their needs are taken care of before they have to ask. If you have a good relationship with your users you'll hear from them regarding things other than problems... like maybe an invite to the bar, or coffee in the morning.
Having a specific day to "appreciate" anything is stupid, if you do a good job and treat people well you will be appreciated every day.

Re:I Choose Not to Participate

[TheRaven64]

If I drop a drink on the floor, the fucking janitor will do his job, and I won't thank him for it. I think this says more about you than it does about the grandparent. The janitor may be more replaceable than you (or they may not, after all, there are lots of ACs), but they're still human, and a little respect does a lot to improve the quality of their working environment, which in turn improves that of everyone else who works there.

Re:I Choose Not to Participate

[ender-]

Excuse me? If I drop a drink on the floor, the fucking janitor will do his job, and I won't thank him for it. Man, you're not an Anonymous Coward. You're an Anonymous Jackass troll. Obviously you were never taught respect or manners.

When I'm working late, and the janitor comes in to my cube to empty my trash, I turn around and say, "Thank you," because he's working late, doing a job that nobody else wants to do, and making sure I can get my job done without having to waste time taking out the trash.

Learn to have a little appreciation for the people who do the things you don't want to do for yourself, eh?

Re:I Choose Not to Participate

[Atzanteol]

As for those who think its stupid.. Go ahead and think that.. Next time you fuck yourself by rm -rf / or rm -rf ~/ you get what you deserve and your sysadmin should let you know.

And this is why we need a day to remind people to be nice to sysadmins... Lose the god complex and folks will respect you *every* day.

Re:I Choose Not to Participate

[COMON$]

I think that may be what they were going for, Sys Admin is only recognized as a subset by those of us in geek departments. I am a Network Admin and I view myself as a sys admin, but I also view our DBA as a sys admin, and same goes with the web dev. Of course I havent worked in a company where there are more than 15 IT people but it has been my experience that when shit hits the fan, the DBA, web dev, app devs and whatnot all are asleep in bed while the "Sys Admins" take the call until the devs and dba's have their morning coffee.

Of course I also view Sys Admins as anyone who is responsible for the system, essentially a support staff for the people that actually do the work. The web dev and DBA at my current job actually handle everything that people touch via a front end or see on the web, my job is to make sure they can get things done.

Re:I Choose Not to Participate

[SatanicPuppy]

I have to agree. Administration is the smallest part of my job, but one of the biggest headaches; dealing with people who think the world revolves around them and the sun shines out of their ass...People who flat lie about systems stability to excuse their poor performance, people who do mindlessly stupid things for no reason at all. Having to execute poor management descisions, reverse them, execute them again.

Even at the upper levels, there is always some moron who makes it through your minions to bother you when you don't need to be bothered.

Re:I Choose Not to Participate

[DA-MAN]

I like my SAs and that is why, as an architect/lead developer I always make my systems easy to build (a single build property, a single build file, and 1 DDL and 1 SQL for those DBAs.) I don't understand this whole Dev/SA rivalry thing.

I've been in the field ten years and all of the developers respect me and have my respect. During a major project, the entire dev team got a big award/bonus, and the lead went to corporate and said he'd not accept this award/bonus unless I was included. Although not part of the dev team, he claimed I was indispensable in the completion of the project. Personally I didn't want it because I didn't think I contributed too much, no midnight calls or usual craziness with a hectic project. Our devs are stellar, they built a great system and only needed help where the abstraction of the programming language was too far out and they needed to do some server side scripting (crons, cmds, etc).

That said all of the sysadmins I have worked with have had great relations with the devs. I've personally never seen this rivalry in person and wonder if it's either died down, made bigger than it really is or so forth. We all work as teams to common goals, we don't sit there and bicker over bullshit.

They respect that I will be the one who has to answer the phone in the middle of the night, deal with hack attemps (or successes if their code isn't up to snuff) and so forth. I respect that they are the ones that have to deliver to the customer a working system. We work together to get there . . .

Another one?

[garnetlion]

Really now, does every profession need it's own appreciation day?

Re:Another one?

[MontyApollo]

Only those that feel their profession is tougher than everybody else's and/or feel their profession is underappreciated otherwise.

Who cares

[ximenes]

I have worked as a systems administrator my entire professional career (12 years or so), and I couldn't care less about this day.

What is the point of these artificial job-appreciation-days? If someone appreciates me or my work, I would prefer to hear it when they feel like it rather than get a mug or something lame (not that I ever have, no one is aware of this momentous day anywhere I've ever worked, thank god!). Whatever happened to honest sentiment?

10 simple rules to show your appreciation

[stacey7165]

1. Remember your password
2. Fix your printer yourself.
3. If you get the message "Critical System Updates Available", don't ignore it. Take the updates.
4. Don't get your laptop stolen.
5. Use sudo, not root.
6. If it was working yesterday, something changed. Fess up.
7. Check to make sure its plugged in.
8. RTFM
9. Don't open that .exe your nice new stranger friend sent you.
10. If its 4:55 pm, let it go. It can wait until Monday.

Full disclosure - I work for Hyperic, http://www.hyperic.com/, and submitted this story which got beat by the one you are now reading... it was in a blog post Javier Soltero made this morning: http://www.hyperic.com/blog/hyperic/2007/07/27/hap py-national-sys-admin-appreciation-day/

Just a fun conversation about all the stupid things admins have to put up with from their users. I know there's more out there!!! Bring it on ./!

Re:10 simple rules to show your appreciation

[Nimey]

Non ex transverso sed deorsum.

Re:10 simple rules to show your appreciation

[geekoid]

1. Remember your password

Maybe the system admin should inplement sane rules and a good password trainingg document?

2. Fix your printer yourself.

Why? they hired you for that.

3. If you get the message "Critical System Updates Available", don't ignore it. Take the updates.

Even if it come in an email? even if it might be a pop up? No user should see that. and competent Sys Admin will to the installs through an automation system. remove updating completely from the user.

4. Don't get your laptop stolen.

In other words "Prevent all crime near you" WTF?

5. Use sudo, not root.

If your users can use root, you are a fuck up.

6. If it was working yesterday, something changed. Fess up.

Yes, but that doesn't mean it was something the user could control, or even new they did. 1 week on the job and two brain cells to rub together whould have made you relized this.

7. Check to make sure its plugged in.

hmmm OK
8. RTFM
What M? is ther an M? does the M make sense to someone who isn't technical?

9. Don't open that .exe your nice new stranger friend sent you.

Even if it says "Critical System Updates Available" don't contradict yourself when making rules.

10. If its 4:55 pm, let it go. It can wait until Monday.

Well, it's 4:55 here but only 2 at the company that needs my information for a contract...but if you say it's alright...
his also indicates that you have never worked in a 24/7 environment, or a critical environment.
Not to mention the lack of back bone to tell the person it will have to wait, assuming it is non-critical.

I agree,

[Anonymous Coward]

I never understood the point in this concept. The impression I get is that most of them are elitist people feeling sorry for themselves, or want some special treatment because they believe their profession is so special. It's just another job! It's not as if it's the only job which is thankless, or another job where most efforts go unrecognized because they can't be seen. It's life. People don't care. Really.

So, please stop feeling sorry for yourselves, or feel free to explain how you should get a "thank you", other than for superficial reasons (which I'd never give into anyway).
Ray

...and, so?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Today is the day that we wish everyone would considering the daunting tasks, small budgets, and ridiculous timelines that many SysAdmins face all year.

...and this is unlike the work that most other working adults face because?

And what's with the cheesy HP plug? (Does anyone still really buy HP printers?)

Re:Why?

[SatanicPuppy]

Blah blah.

Nice to see the trolls out in force.

Sysadmin is a pretty general term these days, but I fall into that category on a number of critical systems. It means that I perform maintenance, upgrades, patches. Means I check the logs on a daily basis, run down obscure errors. I do backup restores, to make sure the guy who is in charge of the backups is doing his job correctly.

If nothing ever goes wrong, then no one knows I exist. Something explodes, and I work Friday night to Monday at 2:00am getting everything back up, and no one even knows that there was a problem on Monday. Then I go on vacation, and something breaks and they call support, and support fixes it and bills them 25,000 dollars because they decided "per incident" support was enough for anyone, and the support guys take a day to fix a problem I could fix in an hour.

So yea, I love it when people who are completely helpless when my systems go down tell me I don't do anything special. I love sitting around at the company meetings where some jerkoff who made 10,000 dollars over his sales goal gets employee of the month, while my jury-rigged failover backup that I put together out of spare parts, which kept the whole company running for 5 days, goes completely unrecognized.

If it weren't for people like me, you'd be using a typewriter and a can phone.

cmdrTaco, CowboyNeal, Zonk, et all

[tempest69]

unlike the parent poster I appreciate the uptime.

Anyway, with a good sysadmin, all the other stuff can be managed to some degree.. just not as pretty. unless you share admin aesthetics.

Wearing the admin hat is easy, wearing it well is a total pain in the rear.

Noticing a master is the trick

Anyway, thank you slashdot admins for a rock solid site.

Storm

It's simple really

[Anonymous Coward]

Do your job just like everyone else or stand on the corner asking for spare change.

"Today is the day that we wish everyone would considering the daunting tasks, small budgets, and ridiculous timelines..."

Yeah, it's called real life. Welcome to it.

Re:Why?

[StarvingSE]

Bah... I'm willing to cancel out my MOD points to make this comment.

SysAdmin Appreciation Day is a way for ThinkGeek.com to boost their sales for the year. I'm willing to bet that the summer months are a slump for them, as is the same for most retailers. Nov-Jan is christmas, Feb is valentines... after that the retail buying frenzy is back down to normal levels. This is non-holiday is always in July.

Hallmark does the same thing... I live in Michigan and we have "Sweetest Day" in September (or October, can't remember). It's basically Valentine's Day round 2...

Sorry, but I'm just full of conspiracy theories today!

Feedin the troll.s

[SatanicPuppy]

Happens I am a designer...I know, I know, how is it possible that someone who can code is not also helpless at the server level? Just gifted I guess.

The real truth of it is that all the things that are produced by all those different people do not play well together, and that a person who can take poorly documented, often poorly written, pieces of code, often with conflicting system requirements, and make them live together happily in the same environment is far more valuable than a prima donna who always insists that the host of errors produced whenever the program he crapped out is executed are all the fault of the person who is running it, and in no way the fault of the programmer, and who would gladly show you how to install it correctly only your system isn't configured the way he likes it, and he has an appointment to get his nails done.

I've worked both sides of the fence...Hell, right now I'm working both sides at the same time, because no one appreciates the value of a dedicated admin enough to actually budget for one. And I'll tell you, the administration part of the job is where all the pain comes from. My code breaks? Big deal. I wrote it, I can fix it in minutes; I've dictated code fixes over the fricking phone while lying on the beach to people who don't know what a compiler does.

But rebuilding a system from scratch after a hardware meltdown, a system to run legacy code or a proprietary app? That's fucking hard. There are a million things that you have to know, seriously special purpose knowledge that you have to have memorized because it's not included in the instruction books, and if you don't know it your only other option is to post your problem on a developer list, and hope they know what the hell you're talking about.

The only satisfaction that you really get as a sysadmin is the sure and certain knowledge that the guy who downsizes you will be paying you or someone just like you 500 dollars an hour to "consult" the next time any significant system craps itself.

Re:Why?

[2names]

Looks like you have run into some real dicks in sysadmin's clothing. The sysadmins where I work actually - hold on - HELP PEOPLE. It's true, I swear!

Seriously, you can find assholes in any profession. If your sysadmins are dickheads, you need to let HR know about it and find some new ones because there are a lot of good ones out there who love the job, like to help people, and have tons of knowledge and experience to share.

Now let's all hug.

Re:Why?

[ocbwilg]

If you need an "appreciation day" for whatever your job is, chances are very good your job really isn't that special. You don't see a "Surgeon Appreciation" day, do you?

That's right, you don't. But only because they get an entire week.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in the US there are all sorts of official days and weeks for various professions. Until recently I worked as a "sysadmin" at a small hospital. They celebrated just about every "professionals holiday" you can imagine. National doctor's week, nurse's week, pharmacy week, lab tech week, secretary's day (administrative professionals day if you want to be PC), and so on. On the respective days/weeks they would hang a big banner in the cafeteria, they'd send around trays of fresh-baked cookies to all of the departments, and usually they would have a little cake and ice cream party to celebrate it. I lobbied HR and hospital administration for three years to have them institute a recognition of International System's Administrator's day as an opportunity to "thank" their IT staff, but we never got it. Not even so much as a "thank you" email or a tray of cookies to our department.

Now that I re-read that, it probably sounds kind of bitter. I've got to say that I wouldn't have made a stink about it at all if they nobody else had their "holidays" celebrated. I mean, when it comes down to it I think it's a bit silly to celebrate a special day for a particular profession. But my previous employer was willing to go all out to celebrate just about any profession except those in IT, and it's hard to take that as anything other than a slap in the face. I could see them not knowing about it the first year, but after three years of asking about it they still wouldn't budge.

So yeah, now I celebrate it every year.

Why SysAdmins tend to be underappreciated

[dkleinsc]

Like janitors, CIA agents, and many other professions, when a sysadmin does their job well they tend to go unnoticed, because everyone in upper management in particular just assumes the computers will work just fine. When anything in IT hits the fan though, you can be sure that the responsibility will be propelled straight down to the sysadmins (preferably junior level). In short, only the mistakes are noticed, and thus sysAdmins are often poorly treated.

Re:Happier now that I'm a developer

[bladesjester]

It's something that I've learned over the years. One of the other things is that companies tend to value your opinion more when they bring you in as a consultant as opposed to you just being a regular employee because they are paying you for a specific thing.

I find it kind of funny that I have been paid for my services just to help design an expansion plan for a network and IT department and pitch it to the suits. The reason I was called in was because they wouldn't just listen to their IT staff, so we worked together, it got pitched, and they got to go on with the plans.