|
HAVE I HELPED? |
THE ONE TRUE GOD
The "local system administrator" deserves special mention in any discussion of networking. You have probably heard of him, maybe even seen him rushing by in the hall to deal with his latest crisis. He is discussed in reverent tones, and in a low voice by all who must deal with their PCs or their Workstations or their local networks in some way. He has special powers, like being able to sniff your connection, or turn off your password, or quite confidently tell you to your face "you're an idiot," and get away with it [does your boss do that?]. And you shrink away, having been supremely humiliated. Local System Administrators tend to be older types who have shunned management in their formative years, having long ago figured out that it was easier to deal with machines than with people. Dealing with machines is not a huge problem to him, but dealing with the people who have to deal with machines can be a real problem. "Who is the idiot who just started 50 print jobs of 400 pages each?" "Who keeps stealing that IP address?"
He is like a human firewall. He has to deal with all the external influences that bear upon him, like bosses who may not have a clue what an IP address is, and internal influences, like you and me, who are still looking for the "any-key." He is the person who is actually responsible for making sure the network "works." You, you just get to "play around" and develop stuff which may or may not get used. You can write crummy code, he gets to try to make that crummy code work. He runs all those servers on your LAN and tries to keep his machines from choking from all that his clueless users will do to them. He crawls around and under desks, and up in the ceiling, and he is the only person other than the telephone repairman who has a key to the telephone room! Nobody but him has a key to the server room. YOU don't even get to lock your office. His door is often closed, and you have to read the warning signs on his door about disturbing him, ....before disturbing him. Maybe I will just email him.... He has at least 5 PCs and workstations in his office stacked on top of one another. He gets to have one of those nifty little monitor/keyboard/mouse switch boxes, and he probably has a fiber ethernet connection, when you have 10baseT. He has a bigger monitor than you, and a bigger disk drive, and much much more memory. He knows all the neat places to hang out on the Internet. He always has a stash of RJ45 cables and connectors, maybe even a spare hub or a printer cable, or some extra memory sticks, even when you are not allowed to buy paper clips in the current recession. He may have an extra copy of Word or Visio, or the latest copy of RedHat Linux. He definitely has some secret inner sanctums that you will never in your wildest imagination ever be allowed to penetrate. Some special telephone rooms, or special server rooms that only he knows what goes on in there.
He doesn't get to go to all the fancy conferences in Orlando or Toronto like you do however. He doesn't get to meet all those vendors day after day and get all those vendor paraphernalia like hats and pens and T-shirts.
He has special truly God-like powers, like assigning IP addresses, usernames and passwords, whether you get the latest PC or workstation or a hand-me down, maybe even how much memory is in your PC or Workstation. Now there is some real power!
Local System Administrators may be the one person you know who is a true computer "nerd."
Here is a picture of a "typical" local system administrator.
Here is a good site for almost any kind of linux/unix topic: Unix tutorials..