SysAdmin: A Dying Breed?

Microsoft's Idiot Administrators:

Personally, I could give a hoot in hell about this ongoing anti-trust saga with Microsoft. All that it seems to achieve is to show the ineffectiveness of Government in these situations and to reaffirm Microsoft's position of power. Personally, I'd like a vendor that would care if I had an issue with their software; if the government can't rein Microsoft in, I am sure that my complaints will be surely ignored. No, what really gets to me is that Microsoft has been dulling the intelligence of each new generation of computer professionals with each release of the Windows NT "Server" that they've been shoving down everyone's throat for the past decade. Microsoft has single handedly developed their own army of zombie "Idiot Administrators".

This isn't to say that ALL Windows NT administrators are dull, just that Microsoft's software goals encourage users not to ask, "How does this work?" of "Why does this work this way?" Why doesn't Microsoft open their code? Well, why should they? They wrote it and it is theirs to do what they'd like with. (Besides, if you can see the code, you can see any that may have been "borrowed.") Sure, Microsoft does have Scripting support and Visual Basic active everywhere - which virus writers find rather convenient, as you may have noticed. Windows NT command line is admirably powerful, but it's not like it's hard-core programming. One of the new "Co-Administrators" where I work discovered how to write a batch script and went on for weeks about 'feeling the power'. Prometheus was nothing; this guy discovered command line after using NT for 3 years. (This actually reminded me of my 2 year old son when he was potty training. The first time he managed a successful 'toilet-trip' he wanted to drag the whole family in to see what he'd proudly achieved.)

Microsoft is, of course, not the sole culprit here. Part of this is accountable to society as a whole. Home computers and more specifically, home networks are much, much more common these days and more folks know how to set them up. Sure, they may not understand what TCP/IP is, or how it works, but they know enough to get it going. Add this too the growing fad of hardware company offering "Server Appliances" and pre-installed and configured servers and that doesn't leave much job for a talented Sysadmin. Tweaking the server configuration? Troubleshooting? Well, unfortunately, the down turn in the economy made hardware prices go even lower. Now, if an App is too slow, many places just buy a newer, faster box.

Hypocritical Employers:

The economy brings another unpleasant factor to the issue, this time being with the Employers themselves. Now, almost like a revenge for the Internet Bubble bloat when clueless computer 'professionals' would take home unrealistically large salaries for playing Nerf and ping-pong all day with their coworkers, Employers have developed a cynical, self-serving hypocrisy to torment workers with. Gone are the days of retirement and gold watches after twenty years; now are the times of temp workers so that employers don't have to pay benefits. If you happen to have a full time job, you'd think you'd be lucky in this shifting economy, but what you get is a situation where the employers demand absolute allegiance, discreet obedience, long hours and unpaid overtime for salaried workers. Sure, salaried workers can expect some non-standard hours, but with the cut backs and lay offs, it's becoming more and more expected that employees work long days and every weekend. I've even been hearing stories lately about salaried employees that have to clock in - come late at all and you're in trouble - but oh, you'd better clock out right when you're supposed to leave even when you stay late - you can't put down overtime. Does this effect just Sysadmins? Of course not, but more and more "Managers" are viewing Sysadmins as nothing more than glorified techs. Disgruntled? Well, then you're told "Leave, there are thousands of others to take your place." (I've heard this phrase becoming more and more common.)

Art or Science?

Most of the negative corporate attitude being listed above is applicable to many positions, but specifically with System Administrators, the management attitude seems ignorant at best. It's common to have Technical Support Managers that know nothing of the technology that they're supposed to support. Even with those who do understand the technology, bad attitudes seem to permeate the field.

One of the more interesting views that I recently heard about from Soup was that of his boss who feels that System Administration is "both Art and Science". The impression that I get is that it's supposed to be science when it's your responsibility for something, but it's art when the topic is the absolute failure of a favored co-worker. In other words, if you neglect to check a log that indicates a coming hardware failure, it's science, but say a favored co-worker makes an unscheduled change to the routing and takes out the company wide area network for 2 days - that's art. My guess is the man that said this was never a System Administrator; as a parent, I have to think that child rearing is part art and science, but if I don't feed my child then I'm an unfit parent and potentially my child could die. I admit it's a harsh corollary, but I view the job of System Administrator much like my role as a parent, caring for and nurturing the systems, etc. Art comes into the picture with doing the job in a craft manner or with finesse, not in failure to perform the tasks of the position.

"Downtime or deadline?"

Economy and attitudes aren't the full extent of the situation either. I see part of the problem to being related to Open Source software as well. Not that the software itself is at fault, but the entire arrangement is the perfect breeding ground for professional role conflict. Open Source software tends to attract the more 'hard-core' techies as it can be extremely overwhelming to the less technically inclined. This means that many of the real inquisitive tech get into Open Source and it used to be that they'd try to 'convert' the "Manager types" into 'the way, the truth and the light' of "Free as in speech" software. The "Manager types" tended not to listen because free speech is something for rallies, not for the work place. "Free as in beer" however peaks some interest, and now even more so that the economy - and the budget money - isn't so free flowing. So now the companies that want to save money are open to the concept of "Open Source" because there's no additional cost - just the System Administrator's time in installing and configuring the software. Wait! You can access the source code, so you can code this to be exactly what we want?! Excellent! Now we get not only a free product, but the exact product we want and still no additional cost, just the System Administrator's time. Hmmm. Wow, you know, we've noticed that Sysadmin is a proficient coder. Hmmm. We could get HIM to code as well and then we get both a Sysadmin and a coder for the same price! The Open Source zealot, happy just to have the 'freedom' of Open Source software is more than happy to go along - until:

Manager:	"Um, why aren't you coding ? We have a deadline of 5:00 pm or the client is going to be pissed!"
SysAdmin:	"Well, you see the main data server crashed and I'm rebuilding it."
Manager:	"Crashed! What have you been doing back here - you're supposed to be taking care of the servers!"
SysAdmin:	"Well, the programming work for . . ."
Manager: (Interjecting)	"Yeah, that's still an issue - you need to get that out by 5:00!"

Fiction? Nope. Saw it happen myself just a short while back.

Yes, I know, this is all so very, very bleak. As I look around, I see my three, 'co-administrators' (newly hired by the "Production Server Manager" when the other veteran administrators left - one quit and the other retired.) They're trying to sort out what the term RAID means. I think they're leaning toward it being bugspray.