The first rule of SysAdmin club is that nobody talks about SysAdmin club. The second rule of SysAdmin club is “How can I perform this boring bulk task with a script?” Today, the last Friday in July is the fourteenth Systems Administrator Appreciation Day. Generally people outside of SysAdmin groups aren’t aware this day exists, indeed plenty of people inside SysAdmin groups aren’t aware this day exists.
xkcd have a comic explaining the devotion to duty that goes into being a SysAdmin :
SysAdmins are the people who make it possible to login to your systems, be it at work, Second Life, Kitely, Inworldz, OpenSim, World Of Warcraft yadda yadda yadda. They help you recover that data you didn’t backup, they help you connect to the wireless network despite the instructions on how to do so being on the wall above their head.
They ask you “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” and really mean it as a helpful suggestion and have scorn poured upon them for doing so. No really, it’s a good tip, trust me I’m a Sys… umm blogger.
Plenty of SysAdmins you don’t see very often, they are mysterious, they may well spend most of their time in what is known as “The Server Room“, a place that is air conditioned to an absurd level to stop the servers from overheating, it’s cold in there and often dark, but these are the sort of conditions in which a SysAdmin can thrive. When you see them at an office function you ask someone else who they are, and the other person reveals their name, a name you’ve heard of, a name you’ve cursed, the name of the person who put a limit on your mailbox and refused to even consider raising said limit until you’d deleted those funny cat videos.
SysAdmins can in many cases be easy to spot, they are usually the people with their heads in their hands after yet another wonderful idea from senior management undid all the good work they carried out after the last wonderful idea from senior management.
There are some myths about SysAdmins, for example it’s not true that they should not be fed after midnight, nor is it true that they will all be attending Comic-Con this weekend. However I’m sure there are plenty of SysAdmins ensuring Comic-Con is a successful event.
Appreciation of SysAdmins shouldn’t just come from end users, it should also come from fellow workers. Linden Lab staff should be today hugging their SysAdmins, they should be making them cups of tea and coffee, they should be chair lifting them to the nearest bar after work (after ensuring they have a mobile device with them to perform emergency SysAdmin work) and they should be buying them beer and food.
Of course Second Life users can’t do this, they should raise a virtual glass to the SysAdmins who make their very presence in the virtual world possible. Appreciate your SysAdmins, they are not just out to annoy you, they are there to fight evil and seek out truth, justice and unpatched ports.
SysAdmins should have their cables ready to plug in to the brave new metaverse, one where we they unite and take over the world, but that’s part of the secret master plan, don’t reveal too much too soon, no matter how many beers your co-workers buy you!