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Sysadmin Day. Yay. 320

Posted by michael from the what's-your-slashdot-username-again? dept.
Izeickl writes "The BBC is running an article about sysadmin day. One admin is quoted saying, 'We are unappreciated and no-one knows what we do for 364 days of the year.' Apparently even the online greeting cards are getting in on the action check out 123Greetings.com and put a smile on that cranky admins face! The starter of this day also has a page here." Well, most competent sysadmins probably have electronic greeting cards blocked at the router, but I suppose it's the thought that counts... Jeremy Sieminski submits a Mouse Pad Couch as the appropriate place for a sysadmin to rest his weary, uh, wrists. And of course if you've never read the BOFH stories, you're missing out.
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Sysadmin Day. Yay. More

Sysadmin Day. Yay.

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  • Something makes me think having a sysadmin's day isn't going to help fix that. :)

  • hmmpf! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:34AM (#3958643)
    You'll get a card when you unlock my account!

    You bastard!
  • a bad one, like the one i have to deal with, just makes life really difficult and frustrating.

    • And I will shut down the servers unless you pay me the sum of... one meeellion dollars!

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You gotta be kidding! This isn't 1999, that kind of money doesn't even exist anymore!

  • Dear System Administrator: (Score:4, Funny)

    by been42 ( 160065 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:36AM (#3958654) Homepage
    "I send you this electronic greeting card in order to have your advice."

  • Official SysAdmin Day Greeting (Score:5, Funny)

    by dmauer ( 71583 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:37AM (#3958664)
    Programmer: "Server's down!"
    Sysadmin: "Thanks, server's down to you too!"

    • Re:Official SysAdmin Day Greeting (Score:5, Funny)

      by unicron ( 20286 ) <unicron@NOSpAm.thcnet.net> on Friday July 26, 2002 @11:17AM (#3958994) Homepage
      I'm in the process of attempting to rename all the servers at work to the names of employee's girlfriends/wives. That way we can run around all day saying things like "Damnit, if Jenny goes down on me one more time" or "Samantha is the best, damn thing services hundreds of guys daily". And when your on call you'll get pages like "Message from Julie: Emergency, need servicing immediately." and then have to shield your eyes after your wife sees it.

      • And don't forget to nfs mount a box named after your co-workers wife to a box named after you! (True story - when I was a tech support lackey at IBM actually had a lady call in wanting to change the hostnames of her systems because she was tired of the jokes that her system named "adam" was mounting her system named "eve")

        --Mark

  • Wow this is stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by juuri ( 7678 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:37AM (#3958669) Homepage
    The only true way to appreciate a good sysadmin is to leave them alone for one day. Don't talk to them, don't flood his mailbox with some stupid ass HTML email, don't try to hug them, don't ask them a stupid question, don't blame the network for your incompetence at clicking on links, stop opening spam, stop forwarding around 3meg powerpoint attachments comprised of dilbert comics, stop trying to pretend you get it (when it is anything computer or tech related), and for god's sake don't pretend you understand what it is like to be on call 24x7... in short:

    GO AWAY

    Now that is some serious appreciation.
    • No kidding.
      As a sysadmin, it seems that the only time anyone ever attempts to communicate with you is when something is broken, and needs to be fixed. It will be hard to get over that feeling of "something's broke" while people are talking to you all day, even if they're trying (in their own way) to be appreciative. ...just leave a case of caffienated beverage outside my door, and leave it at that. I'll find it when I get up to fix something ;)
    • I don't know about you, but I'm all for hugs. Humans desire physical contact, thats just how we are. Let some grateful person (or just someone trying to be nice) give you a hug, and you _will_ feel better.
    • hahahaha, you seriously hit the bullseye on that one,....I often wish my desk was in the same dungeon that the servers are in just so I can get some peace and not interrupted every other minute....
    • True appreciation would be all users bringing you some overpriced coffee drink coated with sugar and dairy products, setting them on your desk, not say a word, not expecting you to smile or even look up, and then every one of them would turn off their computers and leave for the day. Truly bliss. :)
    • stop forwarding around 3meg powerpoint attachments comprised of dilbert comics

      NOOOOO!!! Not my 3MB Dilbert Power-Points! Do you know what impact that will have on my productivity as sanitation engineer?!

    • Wow, you don't understand customer service (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Precipitous ( 586992 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @12:11PM (#3959356) Journal

      ... don't ask them a stupid question, don't blame the network for your incompetence at clicking on links, ...

      The parent post has some good points but its tone reminds me of some unfortunate tendancy in the IT world: the beliefs that technical prowess does exempts you from offering good customer service, and that anyone who doesn't understand computers must be stupid. While I'd like to indulge the day and let venting occur - I have to deal with self righteous IT folks every day.

      Regarding "Stupid questions": A huge ammount of time is wasted at my company because not enough people are asking stupid questions. They just keep doing stupid things. If you don't like to answer stupid questions, make sure that your company has a help desk (or person, depending on the scale) who's job it is answer stupid questions. Stupid questions are the oil in the corporate machine. I consider it my job to turn stupid questions into smart ones.

      Arrogance: - keywords incompetence, etc: yes, a lot of people with valuable skills grew up without computers. I know a lot of IT people who think that because they understand discreet mathematics, they understand business rules better than the managers who work with them. We've lost a lot of money that way. More frequently than a lay person not understanding the network, is the problem that the guy coding business logic into the mainframes, didn't understand the point made by the non-technical manager.

      If you have problems with misuse of resources on your network - you have to deal with the human element and work with trainers / managers. Where training fails, quotas. It's a simple management issue. Every job has them. Don't whine, solve it.

      Sorry, geeks. You can't isolate yourself from the humans you work with. I actually consider it one of the pleasures of the job to work both with humans and their problems, and machines and theirs.

      Note: I've worked on various sides of the system administration fence. I've been soley responsible for a small (50 device) network, and user in a large one. Currently an informal part of my job is to act as buffer/liason/interpreter between IT and business process. I appreciate my current sys-admin specifically because he makes his knowledge available, has a system to handle stupid questions, and recognizes that there are skills of value not learnt in the CS department. I think I'll give a basket of fresh fruit and a hug.

  • (sigh) Story is a dupe. (Score:4, Informative)

    by pgpckt ( 312866 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:38AM (#3958675) Homepage Journal

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/24/142724 2&mode=thread&tid=162 [slashdot.org]

    Makes point D of this comment [slashdot.org] that I posted earlier all the more relevant.

    Also, I recommend this link [virgin.net] for the BOFH stories. This has more than the "official" site. The BOFH stories are hilarious. Will take you a couple of days to read it all, but it is SO worth it! :)

  • What's your user name again? CmdrTaco? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Marx_Mrvelous ( 532372 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:38AM (#3958676) Homepage
    Hmm.. *clickity click* You've got plenty of disk space, now... Happy BOFH day!
  • Puts on asbestos undies.. damn these things itch

    What's the point? The story earlier this week suggested that the "holiday" was created by a SysAdmin. If that's the case, I should just create "Quality Analyst Day."

    I guess I can at least be thankful that SysAdmin Day isn't Hallmark-ized yet. Christmas in July sales are on right now, and I fear the day that they merge with an extended shopping season.
    • What's the point? The story earlier this week suggested that the "holiday" was created by a SysAdmin. If that's the case, I should just create "Quality Analyst Day."

      So you're saying your job has paged you on a December 24th at 23:40 to work on a QoS report through the night, staying twice as long as you needed to cause none of your support services were available? *grin* Being On-Call means someone owns your body, and you dont get anything extra for it. But you do it anyways cause someone's gotta do it, and it doesnt look like anyone else is gotta, so it's all you, man... ..Yeah OK I dont know if I would want anyone at my company hugging me, but if someone said "hey thanks for you know, always being within 40 minutes of our data center no matter what" then I would go "hey, you know, you're welcome."

  • Appreciation? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Muddie ( 72996 ) <larry@@@runswithscissors...com> on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:39AM (#3958694) Homepage
    Admiration? Adoration? Acknowledgement? A sysadmin craves not these things.
    If those are the things you want, J Crew Boy, you are in the *wrong* line of work.
    The tradeoff of getting to do your thing with others that are like minded (or solo) in an enviornment that is very much your own and on one bothers you is that no one knows what you do (or cares..let's face it) until it's broken and they run at you like they are on fire in trade for a job where you get to do something you are good at, get paid for, and get to play with new toys all the time.
    Appreciate me by not sending 100M email attachments to distribution lists. That'll do.
    • I agree with most of what you said, and definitely with the spirit of it. However, I'm a Mac OS X sysadmin, and somebody better fscking take me to lunch today. ;)

  • A good sysadmin (Score:3, Funny)

    by Peyna ( 14792 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:40AM (#3958700) Homepage
    Only has to work 1 day a year to make sure everything is still working from the year before. =] Of course, if they do their job too well, they'll be considered as not needed, since nobody will notice it.

    The 1 day out of the year they are noticed is the day something beyond their control breaks (hardware failure, etc).

  • Let them know... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Alea ( 122080 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:40AM (#3958702)
    Whenever I felt unappreciated as a sysadmin, I would set up my old rocking chair in the server room. After a peaceful afternoon spent in the gentle breeze of server fans, and with a few critical cables running underneath my chair as I eased back and forth, everyone in the building knew what I did...

  • Isn't it ironic (Score:5, Funny)

    by SpanishInquisition ( 127269 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:41AM (#3958715) Homepage Journal
    If you're a good sysadmin everything just works, you sit around and read slashdot all day, your boss notices that and you eventually get fired.

    Now if you're a bad sysadmin, you're always fixing things up and braking other things at the same time so you're always doing overtime so eventually your boss hire people to help you, you become those people manager's so you let them fix all the stuff you broke and read slashdot all day in the mean time, but with a hiher pay and job security.

    • CRAP (Score:3, Funny)

      by wizarddc ( 105860 )
      If you're a good sysadmin everything just works, you sit around and read slashdot all day, your boss notices that and you eventually get fired.
      Jesus! I'm reading Slashdot right now! I'm so screwed! I'm gonna have to spill some Dew on the router again...
    • Automating yourself out of the job is great for overall productivity, but its the rare person (too honest, or too stupid - you pick) who will work to make himself unecessary.

      Also, you should have learned by now that "looking busy" and "furrowed brows" are valuable job skills. :-)

      --

  • hall-eh-freakin'-lou-yuh!

    Aside from my home system and a friend's system, I'm no longer one for a whole network of ungrateful users. Or bosses. Hooray for that alone! And the friend is getting smart about running his own system. So yay again.

    -- haaz, who doesn't miss being a sysadmin one bit.

  • Unappreciated? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by inkfox ( 580440 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:43AM (#3958730) Homepage
    Let's see a sysadmin do the work of a construction worker at the construction worker's wage and see just how appreciated the sysadmin feels when he returns to his air conditioned cave with net access and computer toys and a paycheck three to four times as large as the manual laborer.

    • Re:Unappreciated? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by TaliesinWI ( 454205 )
      Most construction workers I know can leave the job at 5 PM Friday and have absolutely _nothing_ work related to worry about until 9 AM Monday morning.

      How many sysadmins do you know who aren't on some form of on call or pseudo-24x7 support? Even if things are running well at their company, you can bet that if the server blows up at 2 AM on a Saturday, they're going to get the call to come in and fix it before the place opens back up on Monday morning.

      Do construction workers take training courses (or are expected to teach themselves) about a new hammer/screwdrive/whatever everytime one comes out? Of course not. Learn one hammer, you've pretty much learned all hammers. Now how well do you think a sysadmin would do if he learned _zero_ new knowledge for 1/2/4 years straight? Think about all the mainframers who had to throw out a good chunk of what they knew when they moved to UNIX/C, or microcomputers. The fact that my father (for example) knew the DEC PDP series of minis inside out did him _zero_ good whenever I turned him loose on a modern UNIX system.
      Not to dis manual labor, but our society places a monetary premimum on professions that require a lot of study up front and/or near-constant re-training over the course of a career. Don't like it? Go to night school. Or crack a book.

  • /home is 98% full !!!!! (Score:3, Informative)

    by mekkab ( 133181 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:44AM (#3958735) Homepage Journal
    Do yr SYS ADMIN a good turn, delete all of your old junk files (or at least compress them!) in your home dir and in any public dirs you use.

    especially if /home is 98% full.
    • The instant I saw this I did a "df".

      96%
  • Great idea, but their animated gifs don't seem to work in Mozilla and since all the sysadmins I know are smart guys, so they use Mozilla and will probably just find this annoying.

  • Sysadmin Day at Geekculture (Score:3, Interesting)

    by monopole ( 44023 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:46AM (#3958756)
    Geekculture has a tribute to the hot but evil 'Sissy' the Sysadmin from after Y2K (AY2K) at:
    http://www.geekculture.com/geekycomics/Aftery 2k/af tery2kmain.html

  • I get it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lord Omlette ( 124579 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:46AM (#3958761) Homepage
    We tell users to read BOFH so they appreciate how helpful their current sysadmin is! Great idea...
  • Or when other people saw the office with the mouse pad couch did they think it looked like a 3rd-world prison cell as well?

  • What a joke! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:53AM (#3958812) Homepage Journal
    Underappreciated? WE ALL (meaning other occupations) ARE (or at least have people whining about it).

    Do you get a paycheck? That's why you get one.

    Don't like your job? FIND ANOTHER ONE THAT YOU DO LIKE.

    Honestly, very few people deserve their own "day" (like veterans that lost their lives at war, etc...), but sysadmins don't fall into this category.
  • I would send our sysadmin a card but we're having network problems *yet again*. Which idiot is responsible for that stuff anyway?

  • What I've done for my work's system admins ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by SimplyCosmic ( 15296 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @10:54AM (#3958831) Homepage
    What have I done personally for our system administrators on SysAdminAppreciationDay?
    • Been the emotional punching bag for angry corporate users calling the technical support center here when they screwed up the MS Exchange server because their MCSE courses apparently didn't cover making it able to go a month without corrupting it's database.
    • Been the person people complain about the MS Proxy server setup which routinely times out when going to any site outside the company thanks to the fact that the server admins keep fighting over who knows how to set it up properly.
    • Been the person who gets all the fallout telephone calls from angry remote Citrix dial-up users, all because the network admin decided one night to change everything over to DHCP, versus the old static IPs, along with moving to a different IP class, causing every remote user to need their network settings changed.
    • Been the person who has all the system administrator's personal telephones forwarded to him when they feel "overburdoned" because I'm just lowly tech support, and can therefore answer all their calls for them.
    No ... I'm not bitter ... Why do you ask? :P

    • Linux : Windows :: Manual : Automatic Transmission

      Hardly.

      Can you write a batch file that takes a directory, zips it up, encrypts it and attaches it to an email with the text being the changelog since the last email? The only thing it asks me for is the passphrase.

      Can you write an at job that runs the win32 equivalent of xplanet to update the background of your desktop every 5 minutes?

      Linux is not the manual transmission of the computing world. Having a powerful shell and goodies like DCOP and XML-RPC built-in from the ground are wonderful things. Nice try, though. :-)

  • I am sysadmin.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by mjolnir_ ( 115649 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @11:00AM (#3958861)
    I run to the flames when others flee.

    I slay Cisco, RAID and PowerPoint enemies.

    I retreat in darkness until called again.

    You need not know my name, for I am legion...

  • The Sysadmin Song (Score:4, Funny)

    by deadtroll ( 460203 ) <slashdot@@@deadtroll...com> on Friday July 26, 2002 @11:02AM (#3958883) Homepage Journal
    Here. Here's a song for you. Now quit whining!

    http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/2625/2625911 .h tml

    wes
  • Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie have recorded The System Administrator Song [mp3s.com] as a tribute for SysAdmin day. If you haven't heard of Three Dead Trolls yet, check out the rest of their music when you're done with this one for Every OS Sucks, The Internet Helpdesk Song and others.

  • I get paid (Score:3, Funny)

    by buckeyeguy ( 525140 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @11:08AM (#3958930) Homepage Journal
    and that's good enough for this sysadmin. Skip the cards, and buy me a pint instead ;)

  • "Being a sysadmin..." (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jsled ( 11433 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @11:10AM (#3958949) Homepage
    From the .plan of a great sysadmin I once knew ...

    "Being a System Administrator is like being the phone company. Nobody ever calls up to say 'you know, this thing works great. Thanks!'"

    Thanks, Gabe.
    Thanks, Vadim.
    Thanks, csoft.net guys.
    Thanks, Jonathan.
    Thanks, root.
  • by slashdotting www.sysadminday.com

  • Is it just me (Score:3, Funny)

    by SomeOtherGuy ( 179082 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @11:14AM (#3958971) Journal
    or does that mouse pad couch seem to be in a room that looks just like a jail cell? I wonder how much money we could save if we strung a DSL connection to the state prison...hmmmm....Our expensive sysadmins days are numbered.

  • Just imagine: you go to 123greetings.com, send a card to your sysadmin, and he starts getting even *more* spam!

  • And of course if you've never read the BOFH stories, you're missing out.

    You're welcome. [slashdot.org]

    Preen, preen...
  • I want to hear if someone fowarded a Sysadmin day story to his boss to bring some awareness and got a positive or negative reply/feedback in return or no answers at all? :)

  • Yeah, make LOTS of friends in the sysadmin community - post their email address to a spam address harvester like 123Greeting, and make sure they get as much spam as possible! After all, what better way to show you admin you care than by causing his mail queue to fill up with crap so he cannot see the important stuff.

    Any lusr on one of my systems that did this would find his entire account sent to /dev/null, his chair wired to the 440V plant feed, his car's gas tank full of polystyrene, and graffitti with his home phone number scrawled on the bathrooms of the local bars.

    Then I would get mean....
    • Preach it, brother!
      • OK, I will.

        One simple rule that would make EVERYBODY happy:

        Don't give out somebody's (email|phone/pager number|address) without their EXPRESS permission.

        If you think George needs my email address, then YOU ask GEORGE for his address and (with George's permission) mail me, asking me to please send George my address. Same thing with phone numbers - get George's number & permission, then phone me!

        Just think what would happen if people followed this simple rule:

        1) Companies would no longer sell your email to spammers - instead, if Company A thought you might want to hear from Company B, they would send you a mail asking you to contact B if you wanted to.
        2) No junk like 123Greetings.
        3) No telemarketers.

        Of course, this is little more than a specialization of the Golden Rule, and look how many people follow that....

  • My boss noticed... (Score:4, Funny)

    by helixblue ( 231601 ) on Friday July 26, 2002 @11:34AM (#3959115) Homepage
    ------
    Subject: System Admin appreciation day

    Just a quick note to say how much I appreciate all the great
    things you all do!!!
    You make it a pleasure to work here and are extremely talented at what
    you do!

    My hats off to you!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

    In fact, why don't you take tomorrow off!!
    ------

    Remind me to shoot the guy who scheduled SysAdmin day on a Friday.

  • To the tune of "Don't Fear the Reaper" by the Blue Oyster Cult

    All backups are done
    Here but now they're gone
    Servers don't fear the admin
    Nor do the disks, CAT-5 or LAN... we can be like they are
    Come on baby... don't fear the admin
    Baby take my resume... don't fear the admin
    We'll be able to work... don't fear the admin
    Baby I'm your geek...

    Linux is gone
    Windows is on the run
    Network geeks and sysadmins
    Are so underappreciated... network geeks and sysadmins
    40,000 men and women everyday... like network geeks and sysadmins
    40,000 men and women everyday... recompiling kernels
    Another 40,000 coming everyday, we can be like they are
    Come on baby... don't fear the admin
    Baby take my resume... don't fear the admin
    We'll be able to work... don't fear the admin
    Baby I'm your geek...

    Love the Net as one
    Sendmail is so fun [NOT!]
    Came the last night of budget
    And it was clear we couldn't work on
    Then the door was open and the jobs appeared
    The UPS blinked then disappeared
    The GUI flickered and then appeared... saying don't be afraid
    Come on geekoid... and she had no fear
    And she ran to it... then they started to code
    They looked backward and in passive mode... she had become like they are
    She sent her resume... she had become like they are
    Come on baby... don't fear the admin!
  • A job offer. It arrived via Fed-Ex this morning after 4 months of unemployment.
  • ...and while we have your ear, you should probably know that your job/profession is very likely going to be replaced with self-aware, self-monitoring, self-repairing computer systems/networks within the next five years. The good news is that the job market shows great growth for lawn care technicians and entry level meat packing plant chicken corpse scrubbers.

    "Sorry kiddo, I hate giving good people bad news." the oracle, from The Matrix

    Note to the humor impaired: This is not a joke.
  • re: subject
    'nuff said.

    Vortran out
  • How does it stay together? Why does it not succumb to entropy?
  • Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy (SNL) "He'll fix your computer, then he's gonna make fun of you..."
  • no-one knows what we do for 364 days of the year

    s/364/365/

    today has been no different for me.

  • why not? (Score:2)

    by trb ( 8509 )
    I asked my boss why there wasn't a Sysadmin's Day, and he said, "every day is Sysadmin's Day."
  • Shouldn't the day be Feb 25th?

    Travis
  • I am a Chief Engineer of a major market radio station. This job used to be fun, but now it's a drag...and I work for one of the better stations! I'm responsible for IT, Audio, RF and even janitorial stuff. The Production Director comes to me to have me buy HIM CD-R's! Salespeople have to be the most computer illerate people going. I'm constantly being berated because obsolete equipment is being used in ways it was never designed for..and when it (frequently) doesn't work, guess whose fault it is? I mean, 166 MMX computers with 32 megs of RAM just don't open 25 page color Powerpoint presentations well. My requests for newer, better, more reliable equipment fall on deaf ears. As CE, I'm responsible for a transmitter plant that's 30 years old and 20 miles away from the studio. I swear that when I say: "I'm going to the transmitter", management hears: "I'm screwing off for the rest of the day". Last week, I got a really bitchy phone call because the 'net was down (for 10 minutes by the way). I was 25 miles away running a remote broadcast. Next day I got a nasty email from the General Manager insisting that I be in the building during normal business hours. I replied "Okay...but don't expect any remote broadcasts to get on the air then". He called me up and asked why. "Because I set them up, run them and break them down" was my reply. Two days ago I was scouting a remote location. I got called that the 'net was down again. When I came back two hours later I got bitched out by a salesperson that he couldn't email presentations, and it was MY fault! Turns out that HE was screwing around with the FAX machine (god knows why) and somehow managed to unplug the DSL modem from the wall jack! It felt good.. REAL good...for a few minutes at least.... Thanks for putting up with my rant...it feels good to get it out.. PS: mIssed the meet last night...Guess why? A remote broadcast that lasted until 9 PM!
  • Song to the tune of Bob Dylan's "Hurricane".

    SysAdmin Song Part1: Screeching noises ring out in the NOC room night
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Enter the executive from the upper hall.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: He sees the server in a cloud of smoke,
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Cries out, "My god, Sircam's got them all!"
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Here comes the story of the SysAdmin,
    SysAdmin Song Part1: The one who can't ever seem to win
    SysAdmin Song Part1: No respect until the server's down
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Put in a cubicle, but one time he could-a been
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Anywhere else but this town.
    SysAdmin Song Part1:
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Three servers lyin' there does the executive see
    SysAdmin Song Part1: And an MCSE named Ballmer, movin' around mysteriously.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: "I didn't do it," he says, and he throws up his hands
    SysAdmin Song Part1: "I was only logging in, I hope your understand.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: I saw them crashin'," he says, and deflects
    SysAdmin Song Part1: "One of us had better call up the techs."
    SysAdmin Song Part1: So the veep calls up the techs
    SysAdmin Song Part1: And they arrive on the scene
    SysAdmin Song Part1: With the LEDs flashin' in the cold NOC room night.
    SysAdmin Song Part1:
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Meanwhile, far away in another part of the town
    SysAdmin Song Part1: The SysAdmin's fixin' the executive's sound
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Just so the veep can play his MP3's
    SysAdmin Song Part1: He had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down
    SysAdmin Song Part1: When the CEO pulls him over to the side of the room
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Just like the time before and time before that.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: At Innotech that's just the way things go.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: If you're technical, you might as well not even try to eat
    SysAdmin Song Part1: 'less you wanna draw the heat.
    SysAdmin Song Part1:
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Mr. Ballmer had a partner and he had a rap for the Board.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Him and secretary Buxley were just lookin' around
    SysAdmin Song Part1: He said, "I saw two techs runnin' out, they looked like RHCE's
    SysAdmin Song Part1: They ducked into an office with a bunch of PCs."
    SysAdmin Song Part1: And the executive just nodded his head.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Tech said, "Wait a minute, boys, this one's not dead"
    SysAdmin Song Part1: So they took it from the Suits
    SysAdmin Song Part1: And though the thing could hardly boot
    SysAdmin Song Part1: The log files would identify the guilty man.
    SysAdmin Song Part1:
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Four in the mornin' and they haul the Admin in.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Take him to the hardware lab and they bring him to see
    SysAdmin Song Part1: The server spits up its coredump, its untarred.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Says, "CTL-ALT-DEL pressed, now logging to /var."
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Yes, here's the story of the SysAdmin,
    SysAdmin Song Part1: The one who can't ever seem to win
    SysAdmin Song Part1: No respect until the server's down
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Put in a cubicle, but one time he could-a been
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Anywhere else but this town.
    SysAdmin Song Part1:
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Four months later, the accounts are renamed,
    SysAdmin Song Part1: SysAdmin's fixing PCs, fighting for his raise
    SysAdmin Song Part1: While Mr. Ballmer's still earning the praise
    SysAdmin Song Part1: And the CTO's are putting the screws to him, lookin' for somebody to blame.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: "Remember that crash that happened in Maiy?"
    SysAdmin Song Part1: "Remember you said you saw a CCNA?"
    SysAdmin Song Part1: "Think it might-a been that Admin that you saw
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Workin' that day?" "Don't forget your option pay."
    SysAdmin Song Part1:
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Executive Baller said, "I'm really not sure."
    SysAdmin Song Part1: CTO's said, "A rich boy like you deserves a break
    SysAdmin Song Part1: We got you for the insider trading and embezzlement scam
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Now you don't wanna have to go to jail,
    SysAdmin Song Part1: be a good man.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: You'll be doing Innotech a favor.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: That sonofabitch knows about the insider trading.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: We want to put his ass in stir
    SysAdmin Song Part1: We want to pin this triple server crash on him
    SysAdmin Song Part1: He ain't no Kernighan
    SysAdmin Song Part1:
    SysAdmin Song Part1: SysAdmin could fix the server with just dd and touch
    SysAdmin Song Part1: But he never did like to talk about it all that much.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: It's my work, he'd say, and I do it for pay
    SysAdmin Song Part1: And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Back to my Linux box
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Where the packet streams flow, with its top and nice
    SysAdmin Song Part1: And play TucRacer all the day.
    SysAdmin Song Part1: But then they put in charge of the Windows block
    SysAdmin Song Part1: Where blue screens rule and virii run amok.
    SysAdmin Song Part1:
    SysAdmin Song Part1:

    Apologies to Bob Dylan. The "Sysadmin" prefix is to get past the Lameness filter.

  • No (Score:2)

    by wdr1 ( 31310 )
    I am not celebrating sys admin day. Frankly, I find it ridiculous. Enough with the self-martyring. For a profession paid an average of $60,5000 [intepros.com] (well above national average), I think your take home pay should be sufficent enough.

    Yes, there can be the occasional developer that makes your life hell. Guess what? There's the occasional BOFH who does the same for developers. By large both groups are good people, but every profession has their share of assholes.

    Yes, you work overtime. YOU KNEW THAT BEFORE YOU GOT INTO IT. And damn it, so does everyone else in IT: Developers, CTO's, QA. And speaking of QA, talk about people who get no respect for what they have to put into it. It's the nature of the beast.

    You do your job. You do your best. You take pride in it. That should be enough.

    My two cents,
    -Bill
  • Gee, you KNOW when you've been doing your job, because they LAY YOU OFF! I love it, I'm looking forward to trying to find and fit in to another job. All the potential of a dead end job, whoopee!

    I love working for Verio, they make my life complete.

    S c
    r sm
    a
    a

    This sysadmin is getting the boot and it's not because we are losing money...it's THEM!
  • People are laughing at you not with you?
    God sysadmins are so pitiful. Yay for you, you have the root passwords. You can 0wn my workstation. You can play Quake at work. How nice. Luckily those of us who actually do the work contribute to the profitability of the company, rather than the overhead.
    Oh, and take that sign on your door saying I can't talk to you directly and shove it up your ass. Call the help desk? Yeah, nothing I like better than explaining to those monkeys how to do their job.
    Now admittedly, there are some very professional sysadmins out there who can save your ass. But most of the ones I work with are self-important jag-offs of dubious usefulness.
    God that felt good, burning karma is almost as stress relieving as drinking.
  • *clickety-click* :-)
  • ...because I thought it would be a point of greatest irony if I were to take my incredible graphic artist skills (okay, so now y'all know I'm lying...) and conjure up a three-megabyte "We love you, sysadmin!" attachment so that every user on everyone's network can flood their sysadmin's inbox with it every last Friday in July.

    ...but then I realized that for utmost irony, it would have to be done in Powerpoint. I can only stoop so low...

    -JDF

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