Can't upgrade since it causes me to be locked out of the Windows domains at work if I go to 37.

[John]

We had to train the Indians who took our jobs managing TSA and IRS security systems before we were moved to new contracts.

I paid money out of my own pocket to get training on Veritas vxvm in order to be placed on a specific contract (one I wanted). Granted, it wasn't training for a job that was already filled.

I do self study for other things such as learning about Red Hat 7 although I suspect the company would pay for me to go to the class if I asked.

[John]

It was extremely interesting to visit Prague and visit the Jewish area to read the history. The Jews were constantly being segregated into their own towns or areas in cities and not able to have very many jobs. Since Money Handling was against the law for Christians, the Jews became money lenders, bankers, etc. And in reading the historical plaques and documents, you can see how that 'The Final Solution' was just the culmination of years of persecution and segregation.

Very enlightening.

[John]

So a bit over a mile high here in Denver :)

Actual Altitude though would be zero plus/minus a couple of feet as I work on the ground floor.

[John]

Hey! I'm a self-taught hobbyist and I could do a better job of it :)

[John]

Yea, got my CCNA and CCNP over 10 years ago and it's really been a benefit in general networking knowledge. Same with starting off 35 years ago as a programmer. Programming and networking really helps in being a sysadmin.

[John]

Yea, a1 is the one that's probably the most annoying. I get regular (daily) data from this server. I have monitoring agents in place to notify me if the system goes off line or even has a bad afternoon.

"Has this ever worked?"

Are you fucking kidding me? Here are the tcpdumps from the system showing the packet loss. Here's the output of ifconfig showing the interface as down. Here's ethtools showing no link. Here are the configuration files from yesterday showing it was on line yesterday. Here is the monthly consolidation file showing it's been configured for years. The shit I gave you when I opened the ticket in the first place!

"Did something change in the data center?"

Nothing we've done. It's a remote site and we don't manage the data center. Maybe it's a cable that went bad, someone tripped over, a switch configuration change due to a reboot, a firewall change?

Data Center Manager: "In my experience, cables don't go bad. Are you sure the system was working yesterday? I tend to believe the Networking folks over you sysadmins."

Ultimately it turns out the cable went bad. Replaced the cable and all was well again.

But damn, "was it working yesterday" really is a pisser.

[John]

I did a quick search and according to the company, yes we're in the Fortune 500. I can't seem to locate an actual list of the 500 though so I can't confirm it.

[John]

Actually we helped with the description, in part because a few years back when we were looking, he'd failed to put 'Unix' in the description. It seems to be a bog standard description. We are looking for someone with enterprise level experience so HP-UX, Solaris, or AIX are big plusses.

We do get candidates but they all seem to be junior/power user types who haven't managed systems at an enterprise level. They don't know how things work under the hood and don't appear to be interested in learning.

With 35 years of experience in computers and 20 years experience as a Unix admin, I'm making a bit over 100k. In checking the job descriptions available in Denver, I think I could get another 20k if I decided to commute for an hour but since I'm 5 minutes from my house now, I think it's just about worth the reduction in stress to stick around :)

[John]

Nope. I check in with HR pretty regularly and that's what our guy says he sees. The ones that make it to us are by no means mid-level unix admins. He's received others that match but are up in the $250k range.

[John]

Which tech? I'm in Operations and I can't think of any "foreign" worker in the entire department (600 or so people) other than the CIO who's Indian _and_ female (I might have missed someone but I can't really come up with any).

We do have about a third of the department which are women and half the managers are women.

[John]

From a sysadmin perspective, we spent 18 months trying to find a competent sysadmin. When I spoke to HR, mid level sysadmins in the Denver area thought they were worth $250,000 a year.

If you're going to price yourself out of the market then don't be surprised when you're replaced by an H1B.

Carl

This is where I am as well.

[John]

I've professionally programmed in the past and continue to explore and learn even though I'm not a programmer now (unix admin). I do a lot of scripting for my environment though and one of the other admins recently quipped after I said something like "I do a lot of scripting", that I actually "program scripts". In other words, I use my programming skills to create maintainable and robust scripts vs 10 lines to achieve a task. It tends to be interesting when we ask applicants if they can script and to describe a fun script they wrote. It seems that not many unix admins enjoy writing scripts (or at least our applicants).

Could I get a job as a Programmer now? Probably although age and relevant experience might be a problem. Certainly I wouldn't be immediately making the same income I'm currently making.

[John]

Tail Boomer here and same situation. I was a Military Policeman in the late 70's and a security guard in the early 80's. I'd been writing programs since 1980 supporting my Dungeons & Dragons and board gaming hobby (first Timex program was a D&D Game Monitor and first Color Computer program was a Vehicle Generation program for Car Wars :) ). I moved into BBS's, writing programs for the BBS software (PCBoard) and programs for my security guard post and brief stint writing code as a car salesman. Then into full time programming. Installed LANs, was on Usenet when Linux started, played with Slackware from the beginning.

[John]