“Being in IT is kind of like being a doctor with a patient who complains that “It hurts when I stick a fork in my eye.”
John C. Welch writes a quick intro for people new to being a SysAdmin
We, of course, being the logical sort, reply back, in all sincerity and earnestness, “Well, you should stop sticking a fork in your eye then.”
The user, or patient will then look at us like we really are the idiots they believe us to be and say: “No, you don’t understand…I want you to make it stop hurting.“”
I looked at Jack for a minute, like he was fucking crazy, until he said, “The whole problem with IT is that some days, we just can’t make the fork not hurt, and that’s always going to be our fault. It’s why so many IT people drink like fish.”
It’s always been my contention that being a good sysadmin is a vocation rather than a job. Working in IT is 70% personality and 30% technology. You have to fix the problem while, at the same time, making the end user realise that it wasn’t their fault.
And that’s true. If computers worked properly then there’d be no need for sysadmins.
But yes, when a senior manager reads the sentence “clicking this button will overwrite your profile with an older, saved version” and goes ahead, it’s not necessarily the computer’s fault. But when working as a low level IT employee, your manager will receive a call from that senior manager, it’s not the computer’s fault and it’s damn sure not the managers fault, it’s your fault.
Even if you weren’t there, it’s your fault.
You see, you failed to walk on water. You failed to do the impossible.
You suck.
Oh man, that brings back the memories. When I used to be a Sys Admin with Analog Devices there were at least two people in our department who, though technically brilliant, were totally out of their depth in the personality department. They had such a condescending view towards their ‘clients’ that they put the fear of God in them. Everyone was scared s**tless to phone up Alana (not her real name) because she’d usually give them a bollockin’ for being a dimwit before making them wait a few hours to fix their stupid little problem. Oh God,… I can still hear her shrill voice ringing in my ears….
There is also another category of sysadmin.
Those who have to endure the half-knowing (or half-wit).
I am speaking of the people who ‘know some stuff about computers’, at the very least they will try to tell you of ‘another’ way of fixing what they have just broken – at worst they attempt to ‘fix’ their colleagues ‘mistakes’ and you spend months in the backups recovering files.
Then I’m glad the fork hurts…..
There’s some sort of deep Alanis-esque irony based on your two responses thus far.
Businesses are full of people like Gaz alluded to, I have met all sorts of people like this….
How often have I seen a problem that is easy to fix only the user has dicked around with it first and then made it worse.
Or worse….the comment, meant to be somewhat social…”what are you breaking now?”