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Networking IT

System Administrator Appreciation Day 446

jcookeman writes "Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day: 'a special day, once a year, to acknowledge the worthiness and appreciation of the person occupying the role, especially as it is often this person who really keeps the wheels of your company turning.' Congratulations to all who keep the electrons of our global networks flowing properly!"
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System Administrator Appreciation Day

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  • Congrats! (Score:5, Funny)

    by xintegerx ( 557455 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:33AM (#13195222) Homepage
    Now, get back to work, Michael! Yes, YOU!
  • Developers and SysAdmins are mortal enemies! What's with this "Appreciation" stuff?

    (I kid, I kid!)
  • by ProfaneBaby ( 821276 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:33AM (#13195231)
    No, really,internet goes down today if there's not something on my desk by noon.
    • So THATS why our citrix server is being such a bitch - John is sitting eating cake instead of massaging the boxen!!
    • I get the afternoon off, and I'm going on a date. That's a pretty darn good way to celebrate [although I admit the day wasn't marked in my Outlook calendar because of Sys-admin Appreciation Day (SAD)???].
    • by velocidisc ( 766718 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @11:50AM (#13196007)

      Pulp Administrator, With apologies to QT and SLJ

      Do you read assembly language, Brad? There's a few lines of Code I've got memorized

      EBIDIC 9D5:

      "The path of the Network Administrator is beset upon all sides by the inequities of the ignorant hacker and the tyranny of jackass users.
      Blessed is he who, in the name of file retention and network security, shepherds the newbie through the darkness of the Internet.
      For he is truly his users administrator and the finder of lost files.
      And I will strike down upon keys with great vengance and furious deletion those who would attempt to poison and destroy my network.
      And you will know I am root when I lay my lockout upon thee."

      I been typin' that shit for years.
      And if you read it, it meant your ass.
      I never really gave much thought about what it meant 'till just now.
      I just thought it was just some cold-blooded shit to IM to user before I locked his ass out of the network.
      But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice.

      Now I'm thinkin', it could mean you're the jackass user.
      And I'm the Administrator.
      And Mr. PalmPilot here, he's the shepherd protecting my Administrator account in the darkness of the Internet.
      Or it could be, you're the Administrator, and I'm the shepherd, and it's the Internet that's an ignorant jackass.
      I'd like that.
      But that shit ain't the truth.
      The truth is...
      (he levels the PalmPilot and speaks deliberately)
      You're the weak
      And I am the tyranny of jackass users.
      But I'm tryin' Brad, I'm tryin' real hard, to be a shepherd.

  • by kevin_conaway ( 585204 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:34AM (#13195237) Homepage
    Wish everyone a Happy SAD day. Watch the confusion spread across their faces..
  • Should I send flowers?

    ...and people wonder why American Worker productivity has begun to lag...

  • Blocked! (Score:5, Funny)

    by mpatmcg ( 75337 ) * on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:35AM (#13195241) Journal
    Our sysadmin(s) blocked the site! They must not want to be appriciated.
  • Too bad... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Teddy_Roosevelt ( 757045 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:35AM (#13195242)
    you're so buried in emergencies you won't be able to enjoy it...
  • We need a service to remind us of all these odd-ball "holidays".

    The only "day" I can remember is Avogadro's day because 6.02 x 10^23 was DRILLED into my skull by my high school chem teacher.

    Maybe all these "days" could be posted in advance or turned into a Hallmark card or something. I can't remember them all!

    • We need a service to remind us of all these odd-ball "holidays".....Maybe all these "days" could be posted in advance or turned into a Hallmark card or something. I can't remember them all!

      Shockingly enough, Hallmark [hallmark.com] provides a "reminder" service. As Homer would say "Mmmm....capitalism". Of course, you have to give them your e-mail address, but hey, that's the price you pay.

    • here's the problem, as i see it: don't we have a lot of these days already? boss's day, secretary's day, etc.? i mean, you wanna talk about scope creep, folks, and here we see it w/ days set aside for pretty much everything.

      i'm not saying admins, bosses & secretaries don't deserve a special day set aside to recognize the ways in which they're helpful (hopefully!) and are appreciated: they do. what i'm saying is that isn't this really true of everybody, though, regardless of job title of responsibilit
  • by m93 ( 684512 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:35AM (#13195256)
    next Friday is Hawaiian shirt day, so if you want, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.
  • For such a group of elite sysadmins, the sysadminday website is surprisingly....bad.

    Looks kinda like my younger sisters Geocities site.

  • by ReformedExCon ( 897248 ) <reformed.excon@gmail.com> on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:35AM (#13195258)
    I usually take the network administrators for granted and I think that's a testament to the great work that they do. Like the best technology, the best system administrators run so smoothly that you don't even think about them.

    I've been lucky in that every company that I've worked at has had very professional and very knowledgeable system administrators. I know there are a lot of system administrators on this site. I'd like to take this opportunity to say Thank you.

    I'll be sure to kick the ethernet cable out of the wall and "forget" my password just for them.
    • I usually take the network administrators for granted and I think that's a testament to the great work that they do. Like the best technology, the best system administrators run so smoothly that you don't even think about them.
      Speaking from personal experience, we don't get noticed unless there's something wrong, and when that happens it's _always_ our fault. Even if it's not our fault (someone cut some cables and we can't reach the Internet thanks to that) it's still our fault. You ran that attachmen
  • by Beolach ( 518512 ) <beolach@j[ ].com ['uno' in gap]> on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:36AM (#13195260) Homepage Journal
    Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie made The System Admin Song. You can get it (and many other funny songs & skits) from their artist page [ampcast.com] on ampcast.com.
    • Whoops, looks like I should have RTFA before posting. They actually have a link to a video of Wes playing The System Admin Song, but (at least, going off the text transcript: my download isn't finished yet), it doesn't have the introduction that the mp3 on ampcast has.
  • by mac123 ( 25118 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:36AM (#13195269)
    They get no appreciation from me until they fix my @#^%$ automatic cupholder!
  • by Amoeba ( 55277 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:36AM (#13195272)
    Now where are the hookers and beer? Bring me your finest meats and cheeses or I shall be forced to pipe all email through a jive translator.

  • Thats just great (Score:2, Insightful)

    by BaudKarma ( 868193 )
    So when is Payroll Clerk Appreciation Day, or Staffing Manager Appreciation Day, or Database Administrator Appreciation Day, or appreciation days for any of the other vital positions that keep a company functioning? Why are Sys Admins (and secretaries, I suppose) singled out for their own special day?

    • by RobotRunAmok ( 595286 ) * on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:41AM (#13195329)
      Why are Sys Admins (and secretaries, I suppose) singled out for their own special day?

      Because they are traditionally the touchiest and thinnest-skinned groups within any corporation?
      • by r00k123 ( 588214 ) <borenste@@@student...umass...edu> on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:53AM (#13195470)
        Hey!

        I take offense to that.

      • Hey, this reminds me of the last revenge of the nerds movie, where the nerds unite on strike and spread chaos on the country.

        Sadly, this day reminds me that you're only worth the amount of money you can produce.
      • by lord sibn ( 649162 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @11:11AM (#13195636)
        Perhaps you are correct, but I would suggest that you consider one other possibility:

        Sysadmins have one of the most thankless jobs in the world.

        I only administrate my own home network. If I am at home, I am ON the network. if there are network problems, I am always the first to know.

        Yet, I have my own phone line, and as soon as there is any hint of trouble with the network, my phone starts ringing. Maybe sysadmins are a touchy bunch, but you know what? 100% uptime is impossible. And anything less than that makes you the complaint department. It is nice to know that at least one day out of the year, there will be some people who think "ya know, he couldn't have prevented that DDoS attack, but hey, he did what he could to defend against it."

        My whole point is that the sysadmin often looks like the bad guy, simply for delivering the messages, and in spite of all his hard work... well, let me put it this way. My ISP (Comcast) works well *most* of the time. Quite coincidentally, I had connectivity problems for ~20 minutes this morning. Did i think "Goddamn those motherfuckers?" You bet your bippies I did. Because I, like anybody else, do not appreciate it when things stop working. On the shoulders of a good administrator lies the weight of the world. He's not perfect. And nobody likes when stuff breaks. And when he fixes it, nobody cares. They're still pissed off that it was broken at all.

        So... are we really touchy? maybe. Maybe we just hate it when people click "OK" on every goddamned popup window, javascript dialog window, or banner ad that happens to resemble a windows dialog window (just like my dad), and then act like it is *my* fault for fucking up his machine.
      • by mad sQ SA ( 679212 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @11:12AM (#13195648)
        Three weeks ago I printed up a flyer for SAAD, and taped it to my door. Not 2 hours went by and one of the owners of the company walked by and took my flyer down.

        I've been dealing with that kind of attitude towards the IT department for 3 years now.

        Two and a half weeks ago I was offered a position that gave me a 50% pay increase, a plethora of kick-ass benefits, and all at a place that does commercial IT support. Two weeks ago today I turned in my two-week notice, so that on Systems Administrator Appreciation Day, I would be having the last laugh!

      • No, because (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @11:22AM (#13195733)
        They are one of the groups that if they do their jobs really well, you don't tend to notice, you only notice when they screw up, or when they are gone (janitors are the same way). I mean if the developers do a great job and create a great product, it gets noticed, if the marketing guys come up with a way to market things that increases sales, it gets noticed. However if the network and servers are running perfectly smoothly for a year, peopel just get accustomed to everything working properly and don't notice. They don't notice until something goes wrong, then they are angry.

        So it's just a nice way to remember the people that make it easy and efficient to do your job. Now maybe yours don't, but if you work in an environment where the servers are reliable, systems work smoothly, etc, then you have sysadmins who are doing their job well.
      • by Willis Wasabi ( 96857 ) <bsmargiassi @ p o b o x.com> on Friday July 29, 2005 @11:57AM (#13196079) Homepage
        Being one I won't guess at whether sysadmins are considered thin-skinned or not.

        However, your opinion that secretaries are touchy and thin-skinned only shows that your concept of "secretary" comes from 60s sitcoms. Get real. A secretary is the person you go to when you actually want something done. Not talked about endlessly in meetings or pointed to some large bureaucratic process, but just done, now. They certainly have thicker skins than developers.
    • We are keepers of teh Internets, and of the LART. What more reason do you need?
    • I think the point is that sysadmin's come under an dis-proportionate amount of flak from the end user community, as opposed to, say, the Payroll Clerk who shouldn't really attract anyone's negative attention unless _they_ screw up.

      Sysadmins, on the other hand, seem to attract negative attention because YOU screwed up.
      • As a sys admin myself ..
        Systems admins come under a lot of flak because they do not realise their own power , we control the systems and the network and anyone who disobeys us will have file permission problems , web sites blocked and will wake up with decapitated printer heads on their bed.
        But then I am a Dark lord of the Sys
        .
        . .That joke was awful.
    • by Shaper_pmp ( 825142 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @11:14AM (#13195668)
      Well, possibly because Payroll Clerks or Staffing Managers:

      • Aren't responsible for equipment you use all day, every day.
      • Don't get incoming jobs and have to prioritise them minute-by-minute, or have to face explaining to their bosses why there's a whole office full of people unable to do any work.
      • Rarely have to work evenings or weekends.
      • Rarely have to explain hideously complex technical issues to ill-educated managers/directors, then live with the consequences when they overrule your recommendations[2].
      • Can stuff something up and not bring the whole company down until it's fixed.
      • Have a vastly less complicated, technically (and mentally) demanding job[1].
      • Aren't frequently chronically underfunded, overworked and blamed for screwups caused by cheap or old equipment, and, finally...
      • Aren't blamed, every time when you stuff your computer up because you don't know how to operate the damn thing, and blithely assume no matter how badly it's hosed it'll be fixed and replaced within an hour or two at most.


      Ok, I'm over-egging it slightly, but offhand I can't think of many other occupations where every essential system the company uses is under your purview and where one mistake can hose whole sections of the company and lose man-weeks of working time.

      Sysadmins probably have the least-recognised job in the company - when they're doing their jobs well you never even notice they're there, and the only time you notice their existence is when something goes wrong. And when it does all the blame generally falls on the sysadmin for not preventing it (no matter how stupid, unlikely or unforeseeable "it" is).

      I should probably point out I haven't done a lot of sysadminning for several years, but I remember vividly the irritation caused by idiot managers and clueless users ("Yeah. Uh, I deleted my Program Files directory, and when I ran Excel it had an error, and it mentioned Windows, so I deleted my Windows folder, and now it keeps on giving errors... Oh, and I have a presentation to finish for 16:00").

      I also remember the incredibly frustrating attitude many users seemed to have - that you were there solely for their convenience, rather than to maintain the system that keeps the entire company running.

      Sysadmins, I salute you.

      Footnotes:

      [1] Obviously this depends on the size and complexity of the network (and how well you've got it set up), but in general I think "sysadminning" is harder than (say) "accounts", in terms of diversity of skills required and sheer amount of time you have to spend teaching yourself new things every week.

      [2] Although everyone who's ever worked in an office appreciates it, there's a reason Dilbert works in IT. Whether it's because the underlings' jobs are so obscurely technical, or because IT just attracts managers who are fuckwits, the PHB-quotient in IT is easily ten times any other discipline in the company.
    • by Malc ( 1751 )
      So when are the appreciation days for CEOs, Parking Enforcement Officers, documentation writers, municipal works engineers, etc, etc, etc. Where do you draw the line, or decide who gets an appreciation day? Is the world so full of groups of pathetic people that they need this kind of attention? Or has everybody become so self-absorbed and selfish that they need to reminded of others? Or perhaps it's just self-important people trying to promote themselves and have their egos stroked. Personally I endeav
  • yes, and thank you. the perfect day for problems on one of my servers. this is not fair. :(

  • You either appreciate me with some donuts or trinkets or I 0WN3R your ass.
  • The link to www.sysadminday.com is Blocked by Websense and classified as a Gambling site!

    This is why I don't like web filtering!
  • if you are an MCSE :)

    Kidding.
  • Oh, how I like these days : They somehow seem to reflect 'Ok, let's have respect/appreciation for those people... today'... But how about the rest of the year ?

    Same reason why I don't give a crap about either Mother's day, or Father's day (besides it being created to fill up for the holiday-less periods of the year, so people end up spending their money)

  • DUPE! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sp00nMan ( 199816 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:44AM (#13195372) Journal
    I swear, every year at the end of July we get the same "Sysadmin Appreciation Day" story. Can't the editors search the archives!!?!?

  • by Ikn ( 712788 )
    I'd appreciate them if they hadn't nix'ed my remote desktop connection to my home machine. But for those out there that aren't pricks: keep up the great work.
  • by zenmojodaddy ( 754377 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:47AM (#13195405)
    ... for the poor saps in businesses too small to have their own IT department, but who nevertheless get the honour of running round like a tit every time a company director claims the Interweb is broken... IN ADDITION to doing their regular job.

    Me, jealous? Hell yeah. Last week I had to try to recover some data from a dead machine by taking the hard drive out and sticking it in the fridge. Without having the correct size screwdriver, so I had to fudge around with my Swiss army knife and a pair of mini-pliers. (They're a bit bitey.)

    I wouldn't have minded too much but when I sent an email round asking staff not to disturb the extra-large ice-pop in the freezer, I made a reference to MacGyver and got two dozen emails back in the space of five minutes asking what the f*ck I was talking about or claiming to be too young to know what the f*ck i was talking about.

    Come on. I deserve cake too, don't I?
  • ...WebSphere blocked me.
  • by charnov ( 183495 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:50AM (#13195432) Homepage Journal
    Ok...that's as much appreciation as I gonna get. Now I have to get back to randomly switching the routers on and off.
  • by Chagatai ( 524580 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:53AM (#13195474) Homepage
    Imagine my surprise when Websense decided in its infinite wisdom that the SAD website is a gambling site and blocked my access. Yes, thank you, Mr. System Administrator.

  • Wow, and during the same week as Retired Japaneese Pole Vaulter Appreciation Day. Who'da thunk it.

    The only "appreciation day" I give two shits about is pay day. Everything else is touchy-feely, new age pablum.
    • Bingo. I mean come right down to it many businesses would fail without something as trivial as janitors. Those FedEX/UPS/etc guys are handy too, heck it's nice to have electricity, etc..

      Tom
  • ...They shouted back, "No, not him! Give us Barabbas!"
  • Oh, wait. There is!

    http://www.sysadminday.com/Gifts.htm [sysadminday.com]

    I'm waiting patiently for Web Developer Day. Petroleum Transfer Technician Day was last Tuesday.

  • by Adrilla ( 830520 ) * on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:56AM (#13195504) Homepage
    we can slashdot the S.A.D. website to show how much we care.
  • gifts (Score:3, Funny)

    by rhaig ( 24891 ) <rhaig@acm.org> on Friday July 29, 2005 @10:57AM (#13195507) Homepage
    I'm suprised that the gift suggestion list doesn't have any alcoholic beverages listed.
    additions:

        Beer (good stuff, not colored water)
        Scotch (that's single malt, not something you'd mix, and older than 12years please)
  • by dema ( 103780 )
    Lucky for me I leave for a week-long paid vacation in a few hours, so I'm _already_ slacking off. Now I have yet another reason to do so!
  • ...is by deleting the accounts of users who refuse to celebrate it.

    "Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day!"
    "Happy what?"
    "Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day..."
    "You're making that up, aren't you?"
    "No, I'm not." *deletes user's account*

    Hope be with ye,
    Cyan

  • Fuck 'em.

    It's a job. Do it or get the fuck out.

    And if you're not being paid what you're worth (or you THINK you're worth), find another job.

    And if you're NOT worth what you're being paid, get the fuck out.
  • Great so between spouse appreciation day, administrative assistant appreciation day, sanitation maintence enginneer appreciation day, vertically challenged wrestler appreciation day, systems analyst appreciation day, and every other useless, pointless, please make me feel good because my parents didn't hold me enough, holiday we might actually have a moment to appreciate ourselves instead of depending on everyone else to give worth to our existence. It's good to know we have a movement to add yet another "I
  • At my office, I was paged when the T-1 went down this AM. We don't yet know if it's a problem with the link, or a configuration problem on the router, or what.

    2/3 of our 'business unit' has quit since the Parent company bought us. The parent company took away router management responsibilities from us a couple of months ago, and we've had a ton of outages since.

    The techs at the parent company like to mess with our router without asking or warning anybody, there's never an audit trail of who did what, and no
  • Because if you're a sysadmin that actually lives in the U.S. and gets a paycheck, then you're really being appreciated (as opposed to being outsourced).

    Come on, all you operations types: don't act whiny and expect Your Special Day - just be indispensible and be glad every time direct deposit works correctly.
  • Only systems admins know today is Sys Admin Appreciation Day.


    The resolution will be a wildcard DNS entry that redirects all internal traffic to this slashdot article.
  • In celebration of this most wonderful and perfect day, I'm going to read /. ALL day and then reset the network right before I leave so everyone flips out till it's back on. I think I left my cell phone off by accident, too.
  • Why should I appreciate my admin??? He's a complete jerk! I really hate when he #!:&*().%@ +++CONNECTION LOST+++
  • Good god, did you see the list of gift suggestions?? Plasma TV (42"), PSP, Lazy Boy Recliner, XM/Sirius Radio, and on and on... hell most of those "gifts" equal a month or more of my pay.

    No one besides me even knows its sysadmin day, I guess I could throw myself a party and buy a 42" plasma and PSP... but then I'd need a second job to pay the bills.

    But oh, how everyone took the webmaster out on webmaster day and the laughs and levity that ensued. OK time to down the mail server and the ATM circuits...@##~@K
  • by ZoneGray ( 168419 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @11:33AM (#13195824) Homepage
    I'm appreciative of the fact that I'm no longer a sysadmin. Does that count?
  • by slashdotnickname ( 882178 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @11:45AM (#13195957)
    True story...

    Our small company had to restructure it's in-house networks to accomodate a whole bunch of new equipment. It was a mess for a while (unreachable mail servers, backup systems not functioning, etc) but our tireless admin worked 10+ hours a day and weekends for 2 weeks straight. After everything was settled, some of us guys decided to take him out for lunch in appreciation of all his hard work... but not just any restaurant, this was a sort of strip club (albeit tame compared to others) that served lunch during the work week. Anyways, the lunch went well but apperantly one of the secretaries told his wife. Their marriage had been shaky for a while and in 3 months time he was deep into divorce proceedings. From what I hear, it was a pretty messy one, including losing out custody of their kid. Shortly afterwards he had to move because of financial problems. He had also been accused, at one point, of stealing some equipment so he didn't leave on very good terms.

    So Tom, whereever you are now, in whatever river-side van, happy System Administrators Day!
  • by slashname3 ( 739398 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @03:00PM (#13197833)
    I always told my team that if we (the admins) do our job right, nobody knows we are here.

    Kind of a two edged sword when budget time comes around. That's why it is always good to have a network traffic generator connected to the network that can be switched on and off easily. :)
  • by EvilNight ( 11001 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @03:12PM (#13197944)
    We've been enjoying the day just fine. The .wav files playing back on the phone support line are just small shell scripts we wrote to respond to the predictable user questions, should you have any. If you manage to have an actual problem that the scripts can't handle they'll forward to our pagers and cell phones. No calls so far today. Hey, be thankful you have internal support to call on; you could be talking to someone with an Indian accent who doesn't even understand your keyboard layout...

    We're down at the local alehouse where they have 150 beers on tap, sampling our favorites out on the deck. It's a balmy 70'F, perfect outdoor eating weather. May I suggest starting with a pitcher of Hoegaarden, then moving on to Blue Moon, then Spaten Optimator, and finishing with a solid Beamish Oatmeal stout? (This is, of course, assuming you must return to the office today, which many of us will not.) Those of us who aren't into beer are enjoying a few fine martinis and daquiris, shooting the breeze over what backup solution to use next year or what new tech gadgets are on the market.

    If you want to show your system administrator some love, all you need do is read his emails to the company when they are sent out, and actually respond to them. That's it. That will make most of us deliriously happy, not just today, but any day.

    Tech gadgets are nice, but it's rather embarassing for you to buy them for us... we don't let our parents shop gadgets for us, and it's best you don't try either. Gift certificates are king. It's a rare geek who understands what his fellow geeks need.

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