Car mechanics are powerful. So are plumbers. In fact, anyone you hire to help you fix something that you don’t understand can basically screw you pretty hard as far as the costs to fix things. As George Costanza of Seinfeld fame said, “Gee, you need a new Johnson valve in there …”. The consumer is basically at the mercy of the person who services your equipment that you don’t or can’t understand.

I’m a system administrator by trade. I recently realized that this is also true of my job. System Administrators keep your computers and employees working, your data flowing and your storefront (the web) running. System Administrators are usually considered “support” and “maintenance” people. They do the computer work that nobody else understands and they do the physical work that nobody else wants to do. They spend time on their knees, under tables, inside the network closets strewn with tons of network and power cables, under floors, above ceilings, etc … If a website goes down, the system administrator is very likely the one that will get the midnight phone call and have to drive somewhere to fix something that may take days to fix. For example, in the case of the New Orleans hurricane, a system administrator stayed behind to make sure that the company’s computers stayed up and operational during the storm.

So, do you treat your system administrator like a used car salesman? Do you distrust them and hope that they’re not pulling the wool over your eyes, or do you appreciate your system administrator? Sure, there’s System Administrator's Day (every July 28th), but do you realize that without system administrators, there’d be no internet, no email, no phone systems and everyone would be using only the most basic of software that requires no help at all? How does your system administrator treat you? Does he/she look down at you every time you ask for something to be done and brush you off, or does he/she snap to it and get it done in a few minutes?

Being a system administrator, I can talk about what it’s like being on the other side of the wall. System Administrators are usually computer geeks and love using computers. We’re commonly ex-programmers and we are a very creative and fun group of people in most respects. However, when in a work environment, there’s a lot that system administrators have to take into account before accepting and filling a work order. Security - will the change that I make make the company or user vulnerable to attack or abuse? Policy - will this change go against any set policy? Reinventing the wheel - is there already an existing method of filling this request that can be used instead of making a new thing? Legality - will this work result in something that’s not legal? Annoyance - will this work result in annoying someone else (spam)? Breakage - will this break something else? Design - many other people may also want this too, I should design a tool for people to use instead of just doing this one instance. Laziness - man, I just got back from the data center, can this wait for a while? Education - you just need to learn how to do it the accepted way - RTFM. :)

There are a lot of issues that need to be taken into account for a system administrator. If a sysadmin takes time to fill a request or rolls his/her eyes at you, please don’t take offense to him or her. The system administrator is here to help you out and to support you. He or she will be happy to do his or her job and make your life a much more enjoyable place, but please realize that his or her responsibilities are vast and there may be more than meets the eye when you ask for a change that you may think should not take much time to complete.

This is just my opinion and will probably be taken lightly. :)

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