Hmm... I read these kind of articles, and the accompanying comments, and I wonder about certain people. I'm a systems administrator at a community college (80K new users / year - yeah!), and I don't [make | have] it bad. If the sysadmin treats you OK, return the favor. I'm constantly surprised by technical people who think they are "above the rules of common courtesy" or something. It's called being a "professional." If you do a good job, you can make a decent living. If you treat people well, they'll treat you well. Be upfront about what you can and can't do, and the managers won't think they have to ride you to get you to do something. From what I've seen, slacker-admins give other admins a bad rep. In the 10+ years I've been in the field, I've never met anyone who went into the sysadmin job for "the glory." It's about making a decent living, and - yes - being slightly anal about security. ;)