Revelations of a sysadmin: how my family perceives my work

System Administrator Day (or rather, the day of recognizing their contributions) is a wonderful opportunity to see oneself from the outside. To see oneself and one's work through the eyes of loved ones.

The title 'system administrator' sounds very vague. Sysadmins are responsible for a wide range of various devices, from desktops to servers, printers, and air conditioners. So, when introducing oneself to another IT professional, at least one clarification must be added. For example, 'I am a Linux system administrator.' But how likely is it that our family members, not well-versed in high technology, understand what we actually do?

I thought it would be amusing to ask my relatives about this. Just to clarify: since joining Red Hat, I am technically not a sysadmin. However, I dedicated 15 years of my life specifically to system administration and network technologies. But asking family members what they think a Technical Account Manager does is a completely different story.

What my loved ones think

I asked my wife about my job. She has known me since the days when I worked on the front line of technical support in the late nineties. I surveyed my parents, mother-in-law, and father-in-law. I talked to my sister. And in the end, just out of curiosity, I learned the opinions of my children (a kindergarten student and a fourth grader). At the very end of the article, I will share what my relatives described.

Let’s start with my wife. We've been together since the very beginning of my career. She doesn’t have a technical education, but she handles computers better than many. We are approximately the same age. It’s reasonable to assume that she understands what I do. I asked, 'What do you think I was doing as a sysadmin?'

She exclaimed, 'You were just sitting around!' Hey, take it easy! I work while standing at my desk. After thinking for a couple of seconds about a more serious answer, she said, 'You check your email, fix various computer stuff when it breaks. Um... well, something like that.'

Computer stuff? Is that even a real word?

Next, I decided to talk to her parents, who are quite close to me. My father-in-law is a retired long-haul truck driver, and my mother-in-law worked in retail all her life. They are both far from technology (and that's perfectly okay).

My mother-in-law replied, "You work all day on the computer." When I asked her to clarify a bit more, she said, "I've always thought you spend your days working on helping schools with computers, systems, and security."

My father-in-law gave a similar answer: "Security and system protection in schools to avoid external threats."

Well, those are not bad answers.

Next, I talked to my own parents. Unlike my wife, mother-in-law, and father-in-law, they live far away, so I had to email them. My dad used to run a small telephone company. Honestly, he inspired my career choice. Most of what I learned about computers as a child came from him. He may not be a computer genius, but he is definitely cool among his peers. His answer didn’t surprise me: "A sysadmin is the guy who yells, 'NO!' when a user is about to do something stupid with the computer or the corporate infrastructure."

Fair enough. Even before retirement, he didn’t quite get along with his IT guys. "And yes, this is a brilliant engineer who keeps the corporate systems and network afloat despite users' attempts to break everything," he added at the end.

Not bad, although his opinion about the role of a sysadmin was likely shaped by his own experience with the corporation that owned his telephone company.

Now onto my mom. She’s not tech-savvy. She understands technology better than she thinks, but how it all works remains a mystery to her. She has no intention of uncovering it. In short, she's an ordinary user.

She wrote: "Hmm. You create computer programs and manage them."

That makes sense. I don’t code often, but for most end users, sysadmins and programmers are the same people.

Now, let’s move on to my sister. We are about a year and a half apart in age. Growing up under the same roof, she had as much opportunity to gain technical knowledge as I did. My sister chose to go into business and deal with healthcare issues. We once worked together in tech support, so she knows her way around a computer.

To say that her answer surprised me would be an understatement: "What do you do as an admin? You are the grease in the gears that keeps everything running smoothly, whether it's network connectivity, email, or other functions necessary for the company. When a message comes in that something is broken (or users are complaining about an issue), you are the ghost of the tech department who mysteriously is always on duty. You are pictured sneaking around the office searching for a disconnected socket or a damaged disk/server. And you hang your superhero cape on a hook to avoid static. Moreover, you’re that unassuming glasses-wearing person who diligently sifts through logs and code looking for the misplaced comma that caused everything to break."

Wow, sis! That was awesome, thank you!

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. How do I make a living in the eyes of my children? I spoke with each of them separately in my office, so there were no hints from each other or from the older ones. Here’s what they said.

My youngest daughter goes to preschool, so I didn’t expect her to have a clear idea of what I do. "Um, you did what your boss said, and Mommy and I came to see my Dada." (The untranslatable playful word game was noted.)

My older daughter is in fourth grade. I’ve worked as an admin in the same company her whole life. For several years now, she has attended BSides conferences and goes to our local DEFCON, if it doesn't interfere with her schedule. She’s a bright little girl, and she’s interested in technology. She can even solder.

And here’s what she said: "You worked on computers, and then you messed something up, and something broke; I don’t remember what."

That’s true too. She remembered how a couple of years ago I accidentally destroyed our Red Hat Virtualization Manager. I had to gradually restore it over the course of three months, working through the night.

Then she added: "You, um, also dealt with websites. You tried to hack something or, like, fix it, and then you had to correct your own mistake."

Oh my God, did she remember all my mistakes?!

What I was actually doing

So, what was I actually doing? Which of my jobs were so lovingly described by all these people?

I worked at a small liberal arts college, starting out as a system administrator. I was later promoted to senior system administrator and eventually became the HPC systems administrator. The college previously used on-premise solutions, and I guided them into the world of virtualization. I designed and built their Red Hat virtualization clusters and worked with Red Hat Satellite to manage several hundred RHEL deployments by the time I left.

Initially, I was responsible only for their on-premise email solution, and when the time came, I helped migrate to a cloud provider. Together with another administrator, I managed most of their server infrastructure. I also took on (unofficially) the responsibilities for security. I did everything I could to protect the systems under my control, as we did not have specialized security personnel. I automated and scripted a lot. Everything related to our college's online presence, ERP, databases, and file servers was my responsibility.

That's how it is. I shared what my family thinks about my work. What about you? Do your relatives and close ones understand what you do all day in front of the computer? Ask them — it could be quite interesting!

Happy holiday, friends and colleagues. We wish you accommodating users, understanding accountants, and a well-deserved rest on the weekend. After all, you know that working hard on a Friday night is bad luck, right? 🙂

Source: habr.com