Technical Blog of an Amish Network Administrator

I’m probably like many other people in my field, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we stop by xkcd for a weekly dose of reality and humor.  I’ve been reading it for quite sometime and always look forward to what’s new there.

This particular one I found funny and true, as I just had a conversation relating to devotion to job duties just last week.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve been hearing a lot about the “hit by the bus” disaster plan lately, and it’s been getting pretty tiresome.  Apparently, management is concerned because I hold the keys to the kingdom and if I get hit by a bus then they’ll be in trouble not knowing how the network is configured.

It doesn’t seem to matter to them that I’ve spend considerable time documenting everything that I do, I’ve created a document “Open in case of hit by bus” and stored it in a safe place and have assured them that I don’t walk in front of buses.  They didn’t find it humorous when I pointed out that if I get hit by a bus I don’t really care what happens here anyway, as I’ll probably be dead.

Back to the dedication conversation:  I do happen to be very dedicated to ensuring that the network is up and running to optimum performance and I tend to probably be overly dedicated to my job.  I don’t really see anything wrong with that.  I can still spend time with my family and ensure that things are running with remote access to my Network Management station and emails to my Blackberry.  Myself and several other sysadmins that I know spend a great deal of time configuring, planning and implementing new ideas, and we tend to be dedicated as we take a personal stake in the operation.  I believe this is a sign of a good sysadmin.  Someone who views it as more than just a 9-5 job, but more as a dedicated career.

My manager brought up that there is a certain person here that has brought up concerns about how much control I have over the network which lead to the question as to whether I can be trusted with that much power.  I tried to assuage the concerns on that as best as I could, since the fear is that if I were to get angry, I could effectively destroy everything in just a few minutes.  I told him that I’m terribly dedicated, and if I were to do such a thing I know that I would end up in jail, so why I would I want to do that?  If it comes time for me to part ways, I’ll leave gracefully knowing full well that it I’ll have another position somewhere quickly, where I’ll be just as dedicated.

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