The job of "system administrator" sounds very vague. Sysadmins are responsible for a wide range of different devices, from desktops to servers, printers and air conditioners. Therefore, introducing yourself to another IT specialist, you need to add at least one clarification. For example, "I'm a Linux system administrator." But how likely is it that our non-tech savvy family members understand what we are doing?
It seemed funny to me to ask my relatives about this. Just in case, I’m not technically a sysadmin since joining Red Hat. Nevertheless, I have devoted 15 years of my life directly to system administration and network technologies. But asking family members what they think a Technical Account Manager is doing is a whole different story.
What do my loved ones think
I asked my wife about my job. She has known me since the days when I worked on the first line of technical support in the late nineties. Interviewed parents, mother-in-law and father-in-law. I talked to my sister. And at the very end, for the sake of interest, I found out the opinion of the children (kindergarten and fourth grade of the school). At the very end of the article, I will tell you what my relatives described.
Let's start with the wife. We have been together since the early days of my career. She has no technical education, but she knows how to handle a computer better than most. We're about the same age. It's logical to assume that she understands what exactly I'm doing. I asked: "What do you think I did as a sysadmin?"
"I sat my pants!" She blurted out. Hey, take it easy! I work from my desk. After thinking about a more serious answer for a couple of seconds, she said: “You check your mail, fix all kinds of komputery things when they break. Um ... well, something like that. "
Computer? Is that even a real word?
Then I decided to talk to her parents, people who are very close to me. My father is a retired truck driver, and my mother has worked in trade all her life. They are both far from technology (which is quite normal).
My mother-in-law answered me: "You work at the computer all day." When I asked her to refine her answer a little, she said, "I always felt like you were working all day on how to help schools with computers, systems and security."
The father-in-law gave a similar answer: "Safety and security of the system in the school to avoid external threats."
Well, not bad answers.
Then 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. Dad used to run a small telephone company. To be honest, he inspired me to choose a profession. Most of the information I learned about computers as a child was from him. He may not be a computer genius, but among his peers, he is definitely cool. His answer did not surprise me: "A sysadmin is the kind of guy who shouts:" NO! "If a user is preparing to do something stupid with a computer or corporate infrastructure."
Fair enough. Even before retirement, he didn't get along too well with his IT people. “And yes, he's also a brilliant engineer who keeps corporate systems and the network afloat despite user attempts to break everything,” he added at the end.
Not bad, even if his views on the role of a sysadmin were shaped by his own experience with the corporation that owned his telephone company.
Now mom. She is not friendly with technology. She understands them better than she thinks, but all the same, how the technique works is a secret for her. And she is not going to reveal it. In short, an ordinary user.
She wrote: “Hmm. You create and manage computer programs. "
Reasonable. I don't program often, but for most end users sysadmins and programmers are the same people.
We pass to the sister. We have about a year and a half age difference. We grew up under the same roof, so as a child she could acquire as much technical knowledge as I did. My sister chose to go into business and deal with health issues. Once we worked together in technical support, so with a computer it is "you".
To say that her answer surprised me is to say nothing: “What are you doing as a sysadmin? You are the lubricant in the gears that keeps everything running smoothly, whether it's network connectivity, email, or other features a company needs. When a message comes in that something has broken (or users complain about a problem), you are the spirit of the tech department, mysteriously always at the helm. You are introduced creeping around the office in search of a loose outlet or a damaged disk / server. And you hang your superhero cloak on a hook so that there is no static. And also - you are the same inconspicuous bespectacled man who diligently looks through the logs and code in search of a comma that caused everything to break.
Wow little sister! It was awesome, thanks!
And now the very moment you have all been waiting for. How do I make a living in the eyes of my own children? I spoke to them in turn in my office, so they did not receive any prompts from each other or from their elders. Here's what they said.
My youngest daughter goes to kindergarten, so I didn't expect her to imagine what exactly I was doing. "Um, you did what the boss said, and Mom and I came to see Daddy." (“Um, you did what your boss said, and me and Mommy came to see my Dada.” Is an untranslatable play on children's words).
The eldest daughter is in the fourth grade. All her life I have worked as a sysadmin at the same company. For several years now she has been attending the BSides conference and attending our local DEFCON, as long as it does not disturb her daily routine. She is a smart little girl and she is interested in technology. She even knows how to solder.
And this is what she said: "You worked on computers, and then you messed up something, and something broke, I don't remember what."
It is truth too. She remembered how I accidentally destroyed our Red Hat Virtualization Manager a couple of years ago. I had to restore and return it to service little by little over the course of three months.
Then she added, “You, um, also worked on websites. I tried to hack something or, like, fix something, and then you had to correct your own mistake. "
Lord, did she remember all my mistakes ?!
What did I really do
So what did I do? Which of my works did all these people describe so reverently?
I worked in a small liberal arts college. He started as a system administrator. Then I was promoted to senior sysadmin. In the end, I was promoted to HPC systems administrator. The college used to be on-premise, and I became their guide to the world of virtualization. I designed and built their Red Hat virtualization clusters, worked with Red Hat Satellite so that I could manage several hundred (by the time I left) RHEL deployments.
At first I was only responsible for their on-premise email solution and when the time came I helped them migrate to the cloud provider. I, along with another administrator, managed most of their server infrastructure. I was also (unofficially) assigned security responsibilities. And I did everything possible to protect the systems under my control, since we did not have specialized specialists. I have automated and scripted a lot. Everything about the presence of our college on the Internet, ERP, databases and file servers was my job.
Like this. I talked about what my family thinks about my work. And what about you? Do your family and friends understand what you do in front of the computer all day? Ask them - it can be very curious!
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