Sysmom is always right.

Okay, spent today doing the usual sysmom stuff. Having purchased (and actually read) "Time Management For System Administrators" back before the end of the year, I actually have attempted to put the well illustrated concepts in the book into practice. After a couple of years of dithering, I actually put RT up and deployed it. I've been trying to solve the calendering dilemma for many years here at $DAY_JOB, and reading this book got me hot on it yet again.

But enough of that.

In this new year, I still find myself frustrated to tears by the whole Sysmom thing. In very many ways, I've been at this game way too long. These last 2 incomplete weeks since the new years have inspired me to sit down and write a paper titled "When good sysadmins go bad" or "What to do when your Sysmom shuts down all the machines in the NOC, and says "Okay, NOW, let's talk "". --a cautionary tale.

Well, if not the machines, then at least the backbone switch.

For those of you who are !systemadministrators, understand please that what your systemadministrator(s) want for you is what you want for yourself. They want your data to be safe, to have integrity. They want your applications to be robust and they want your entire computing environment to be up to whatever tasking required of it. Note the use of 'required'. What they want from you; is a clear and concise vision of that tasking, and for you to act and perform in a manner that is consistent with those goals. It really is that simple.

Policies don't exist to hinder, they really don't. Yeah, sure, there are policies that are completely insane. Usually dreamed up by folks who read something in an article out of an in-flight magazine, or overheard some idiotic comment by the 'computer guyz' on NRP. Or worse yet, actually read something in a Ziff Davis publication. The folks in your system administration dept, often just one folk, know your system, know what you do to screw it up, they know how to fix it, and how to keep it from breaking in the first place. Listen to them, and listen carefully. Do as they say. Are system administrators always right?

yes.