Decoding the SysAdmin: Shedding Light on the Role of IT MVPs

solarwinds_worldwide_llc over 5 years ago 1 minute read time

The age-old question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” has long been answered with occupations such as: firefighter, ballerina, doctor, or princess. Why, you may wonder, does systems administrator rarely make the cut? As a critical member of the organization they support, surely a more rewarding and interesting career than SysAdmin can’t possibly exist!

While we know how exciting, versatile, and important our jobs truly are, do the people closest to us understand? When you get a text message from your remote monitoring system during a soccer game or dance recital, what do you tell your kids? If you break from analyzing system logs to enjoy a family dinner, how do you explain that a log is more than a chopped up tree trunk? Even with all your tireless explaining, how many times have you heard a version of this phrase: “My mom does something with computers…I think”?

In honor of Systems Administrator Day this year, we want to know what your family thinks you do 24/7, rain or shine, day or night. Whether it’s “Stuff on a computer,” “Emails their friends,” “Fixes problems,” or “Uhh…technology?”, let us know by July 18, and we’ll give you 250 THWACK points—and, if necessary, moral support from your fellow techies who do understand that you have the coolest job in the world.

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Parents

rschroeder over 5 years ago

I've always been technically oriented, and from my first adventures taking apart the family's failed washing machine and dryer, through being tired of taken advantage of by automobile repair places, to being sent around the country by my employers to be trained to better serve their network needs, I've been satisfied with the challenge and results.
Yes, doing a great job as a Network Analyst often IS like the old story of wetting your pants while wearing a dark suit--you get a warm feeling, but mostly no one notices.
My kids think my work is boring and tedious. I've taken them on some after-hours network repairs & replacements, but there's been little for them to do and see, or to help with. A person needs to understand the 7-layer network salad, and EIGRP and BGP and TACACS and DNS and DHCP, and the alphabet is almost as tiring as the bad network patching I continually find at the front of our switches.
BUT! I've put two kids through college with the income, and have taken my family on some wonderful flying vacations in and out of the U.S. as a result of my job.
AND I get the enjoyment of working as the spider in the center of the web, the Engineer on the Information Highway, and the satisfaction of knowing I'm doing a great job at saving the company money while providing the best possible experience and up time for the users and customers.
When I used to help run the sound and lights in school theatrical productions, and when I am in dance bands working with sound & lights, and when I look at the fancy home stereo system I had when I was only 19 years old--I equate that all to designing and purchasing and implementing and supporting a complex and resilient network. Sure, there are 80,000 switchports, 60,000 IP addresses active and in use, and it's in a mission critical environment that provides care for people who are hurt or sick. Yes, there are 17,000 employees ready to complain when Outlook is slow or when we perform maintenance that briefly removes their ability to access the network, in the name of keeping and improving 99.999% uptime.
But the pay is great for the area in which I live and work, and I've stayed with this company for the last 15 years because the challenge and need and satisfaction and budget are great.
Occasionally work interrupts my sleep. It interrupted soccer games or recitals, too. The kids understood in general that doctors and sick or hurt people relied on the information the network provided, and they were proud of the organization relying on me to prevent outages, or to restore services as quickly as possible. They understood the old "Information Highway" analogy, and that I was one of the engineers designing and building and maintaining that highway, always ensuring if one lane is blocked, traffic has a good way to get around the blockage. They understood my firewall work helped keep "the bad guys" out of the network.
I don't think either of my kids would go into my kind of I.T. as professionals. Given my wife is ALSO an I.T. Professional, I wouldn't be surprised if our kids ran full-bore away from I.T. and Business. But, one of the kids is part ways into a Ph.D. in Particle Physics and he supports the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, which is a dream he's had since about 6th grade. And the other offspring pursued my dream/hobby of music and theater; she's working on an undergraduate degree focused on Stage Management. Both of these kids put in WAY too much time towards their professions, even outside of education/school, and THAT'S likely a result of them seeing examples of over-dedication to work from their parents.
But my kids both know what an SFP GBIC looks like and does. And I empty my pockets out occasionally and play "What do you suppose this gadget is?" with them. The last thing I sprung on them was fiber dust covers for my riser cables' ends. Who knows what it'll be next time? Maybe I'll help them get an idea why cities have implemented new rules preventing ISP's from digging up the streets to install more fiber, and discuss with them what DWDM means to them and their taxes and transportation convenience . . .
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rschroeder over 5 years ago

I've always been technically oriented, and from my first adventures taking apart the family's failed washing machine and dryer, through being tired of taken advantage of by automobile repair places, to being sent around the country by my employers to be trained to better serve their network needs, I've been satisfied with the challenge and results.
Yes, doing a great job as a Network Analyst often IS like the old story of wetting your pants while wearing a dark suit--you get a warm feeling, but mostly no one notices.
My kids think my work is boring and tedious. I've taken them on some after-hours network repairs & replacements, but there's been little for them to do and see, or to help with. A person needs to understand the 7-layer network salad, and EIGRP and BGP and TACACS and DNS and DHCP, and the alphabet is almost as tiring as the bad network patching I continually find at the front of our switches.
BUT! I've put two kids through college with the income, and have taken my family on some wonderful flying vacations in and out of the U.S. as a result of my job.
AND I get the enjoyment of working as the spider in the center of the web, the Engineer on the Information Highway, and the satisfaction of knowing I'm doing a great job at saving the company money while providing the best possible experience and up time for the users and customers.
When I used to help run the sound and lights in school theatrical productions, and when I am in dance bands working with sound & lights, and when I look at the fancy home stereo system I had when I was only 19 years old--I equate that all to designing and purchasing and implementing and supporting a complex and resilient network. Sure, there are 80,000 switchports, 60,000 IP addresses active and in use, and it's in a mission critical environment that provides care for people who are hurt or sick. Yes, there are 17,000 employees ready to complain when Outlook is slow or when we perform maintenance that briefly removes their ability to access the network, in the name of keeping and improving 99.999% uptime.
But the pay is great for the area in which I live and work, and I've stayed with this company for the last 15 years because the challenge and need and satisfaction and budget are great.
Occasionally work interrupts my sleep. It interrupted soccer games or recitals, too. The kids understood in general that doctors and sick or hurt people relied on the information the network provided, and they were proud of the organization relying on me to prevent outages, or to restore services as quickly as possible. They understood the old "Information Highway" analogy, and that I was one of the engineers designing and building and maintaining that highway, always ensuring if one lane is blocked, traffic has a good way to get around the blockage. They understood my firewall work helped keep "the bad guys" out of the network.
I don't think either of my kids would go into my kind of I.T. as professionals. Given my wife is ALSO an I.T. Professional, I wouldn't be surprised if our kids ran full-bore away from I.T. and Business. But, one of the kids is part ways into a Ph.D. in Particle Physics and he supports the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, which is a dream he's had since about 6th grade. And the other offspring pursued my dream/hobby of music and theater; she's working on an undergraduate degree focused on Stage Management. Both of these kids put in WAY too much time towards their professions, even outside of education/school, and THAT'S likely a result of them seeing examples of over-dedication to work from their parents.
But my kids both know what an SFP GBIC looks like and does. And I empty my pockets out occasionally and play "What do you suppose this gadget is?" with them. The last thing I sprung on them was fiber dust covers for my riser cables' ends. Who knows what it'll be next time? Maybe I'll help them get an idea why cities have implemented new rules preventing ISP's from digging up the streets to install more fiber, and discuss with them what DWDM means to them and their taxes and transportation convenience . . .
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