for sys/net admins is to keep in the back of your mind that your actions can be scrutinized somewhere down the line, even if you are the most conscientious, morally upright employee.

If you work in an environment where you are the key technical resource, and others don't have the chops to safely manage the systems you designed/built, you still need to be sure that you put mechanisms in place to track access first, and then you need to provide equivalent access as agreed with management, to other administrators. Since you have the tracking mechanisms there, you can unravel who did what if there is an issue.

I know that it's hard to do this if you work in a hostile environment, or one where people are defensive about their jobs. This is especially true if you are the lead or only techie with the skillset to safely operate in the environment. But without being too paranoid about it, try to inform management as to what you're doing occassionally, track access of yourself & others (if you exclude yourself by using other means of authentication or access, you won't have a leg to stand on, since your actions weren't logged and you could have 'hidden' them).

Try to foster a trust environment with your peers, help them along in becoming competent while giving them access appropriate to their skillset (but make sure others know they are accountable for their actions), and you would improve your chances at exonerating yourself if the PHB's ever start pointing the accusing finger at you.

We make with C, no problem.

I predict that these things are going to take off. Once people realize that they don't need a heavy OS like Windows in order to enjoy a portable platform that provides email & web browsing, any prejudice against will evaporate. Besides, most people won't even notice that Windows is missing.

One reason PDA's never took off is the man-machine interface. The keyboard is pretty much a must-have for an email & messaging platform. These things are going to be everywhere, especially with carriers eager to sell data plans subsidizing them.

I'm surprised that nobody brought this up, although someone did mention that wp will probably be notable in hindsight as a social experiment.

To reference another social experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment (wp, why not ?)

A closed society, given absolute power, discards any moral obligations towards other individuals that are categorized as 'others'. We see this time & time again throughout human history. Is this exclusionary behaviour really a surprise to anyone ?

I've worked in several large datacenters in the Atlanta area for various clientes in the past few months. These things are overbuilt, and half or more of their capacity looks idle. Speaking with dc staff, many of even the populated cages are idle/bankrupt/abandoned.

And the dc salesmen have seemed pretty eager last 6 months or so. I've bought some rack space & virtual servers recently, and got some shinin' deals.

So I can attest to the fact that at least that postulate about dc capacity being underutilized.

But, things seem on the upswing now though, at least my intuition says so.

Only if it's equipped with a microscope

ba-ding

You're right, it can be tiring over the long run, and I think that many of us experience that burn out. But I find that I have a healthy amount of enthusiasm for my work when I'm allowed a certain amount of freedom to pursue good solutions on my own & implement them, or work on a team & pull off a project that is technically elegant or especially efficient.

The one feeds the other I think, you build up that confidence from management, and they continue to give you those degrees of freedom that keep you motivated. Then again, all it takes is one overbearing PHB to derail that :( You learn to watch out for those types though, as you see different environments over the years.

The best thing is that if it is going right, no matter how challenging the work is, it feeds into other parts of your life & has positive impacts there.

I'm with you, I liked being a contractor also. I felt like I owed a higher degree of professionalism & rapidity, though. Pull that off, and it'll make you shine, and they'll bend over backward to stay out of your way and let you get the work done.

Now, having moved to a full-time position, which I thought I would never do again, I keep the same attitude of 100% heads down, no slacking whatsoever, and man, do they ever show the appreciation for that. I work more than 40, never outwardly show any negative emotion regarding unpleasant maintenance windows or working conditions, and help out my peers.

So maybe how they treat IT folks also has something to do with the attitude you bring to the job. Act like a paid-by-the-hour, high-dollar pro, even if you're 'fulltime', and you'll be treated as such.

Okay, lots of fans for Finland here. Sure, they have some tech industry there. But they are still rural. Name three major metros in Finland, anyone ?? Helsinki, um, um....

Let's compare with Arkansas for instance, shall we ? Anyone want to debate that it is rural ? Anyone want to debate there is tech industry there ? Walmart, UoA RFID research center, Acxiom, Tyson Foods, Arkansas Best Freight -- all major tech consumers & employers.

Cell phone coverage everywhere ? Sure. Running water everywhere ? Probably.

Paper mills ? Yep, got them too. I don't know who designed them, but a paper mill is a big ugly smelly thing that unless otherwised purpposed, will remain a hulking ghost if decommissioned.

Finland is definitely remote relative to the core of Europe, is sparsely populated, and in fact refers to itself as a 'rural European nation' (google "rural finland").

So, I don't undertand what your argument is. Are you just punking on the fact that the guy was making a joke and I tried to turn it serious ? If that's it, then grow up and join the adult table.

If you believe that Finland is the premier urban oasis of Western Europe, maybe you ought to go there & look around for yourself. Then tell me what you think.