(originally posted 1/5/2005)

So things are better…

I think.

It’s so hard to come off your favorite job ever and do something else.

So I continue…

We had a conversation on [ALE] today (http://www.ale.org) regarding sysadmins and their salaries. Some folks out there are swooning over $20/hr gigs, and I just don’t get it.

The professional demands of the sysadmin range from technologist to politician to therapist.

Sometimes I think yearly medals should be awarded.

Anyhow….

A recruiter contacted me regarding a position in Oregon @ $20/hr. I counted that an insult. I related that fact to the LUG, and found all sorts of ballyhooing about started. Now, don’t call me a prude or high-and-mighty, but I’ve been doing this stuff for 15 years as of this month. Everything from PC’s on DOS 3.3 to watching Windows come out and then NT3… you get the picture. Let’s just say I got wise and got out of the Windows market…It’s doomed anyway.

So, I started to get interesting comments such as:

C’mon $20.. You could live like a king…

Hey, I phone-interviewed with a place in NC that wanted to pay $45K for a do-everything IT manager. I politely informed the gentlemen that I was making over $60K when I was already doing many of the specific things they said they needed done (and that was Government!) and that I know a Windows admin in Norcross who’s making ~48K without a degree.
They wouldn’t budge.

Get used to it.

Seems like I mentioned something along these lines last week during the H1B debate. Artificially driving salaries up based on pure unbridled greed is exactly what leads to periods of unemployment and the flood of immigrant workers. Feel free to take your shots at these companies, but understand that one day they might swing back and send you and half your peers to the unemployment line. Then that 40k will look pretty good. I’m not speculating on any one person’s worth. That obviously varies from person to person. But sometimes a position is only worth so much money to a given employer. You can either accept it, or move on to other things. Bashing the company in question and suggesting a pseudo mutiny witin the industry is not going to change things. If anything, it helps to perpetuate the growing feeling that “computer people” are over paid prima donnas. Next thing you know, you’ll be calling for a damn union.

I think that’s enough. The last quoted suggests “psuedo-mutiny” and all that, and I think that is quite laughable. There’s piles of documentation out there regarding what a UNIX administrator is, what each level of experience is worth, and what the criteria are to measure an admin’s quality. (The Systems Administrator’s Guild maintains most of this information at http://www.sage.org) There’s even a certification track and everything. You’d think someone would use it.

Anyhow, the advocating of paying what someone is worth for (here’s the reference to the previous article) measurable, quantifiable work is a *VERY* old concept. I believe the original quote goes something like:

After all, the worker deserves to have his needs met.

Let’s look into the fact that there is a serious need for good talent. Not just book talent…not just kids with degrees, but folks with a serious dedication to their work for whatever motivation…whether just geekiness, or pride in one’s work, or a personal technical itch to be scratched. I find more people in my line of work that come from three camps:

I just got into this because there was money in it

This is pretty common right now, because we’re in the first generation of geeks that got trained right around the bust, and found themselves in a career in decline….or so they were told.

During the bust, I was working alongside folks that thought they could copy/paste perl scripts into a UNIX box, and voila! they were perl programmers. I also had a UNIX admin I worked with that thought he was God’s gift to systems folk when he could use that there “vi” editor. (pronounced it ‘veye’…some do, I’ve always found it quaint)

These will be disappointed to a degree, but will eventually get the experience and seasoning they need…in another 5 years or so. It all depends on their day of realization that this is going to be real work, and not copy/pasting other people’s work.

Can you believe I’m a sysadmin and I get PAID!!!

The perennial geek. Glad to be here, and glad to be working. Usually overworks themselves because they enjoy it. These folks progress and grow at a much faster rate than just about any other. These will be the ones taking my job considerably faster than it took me to replace the guy before me. They are in the tech for the love of it.

I got into this, and It’s a job
I feel sorry for these sometimes. They don’t really have any serious joy in their gig, and are waiting for retirement. I hope it was worth it.

I just really think it’s important you have to dig what you do. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get there with this one. I’ll try , though. In the meantime, all offers in Atlanta welcome.

(originally posted 1/1/2005)

Ever get a new gig?

Get a new gig when you were really in need? (i.e. laid off) Only to find out the organization was hopelessly broken in more ways than you can count?

Welcome to my daily life right now. I can’t guarantee I won’t be somewere else in a few months (or weeks)

The company I work for right now (just started on 12/27) is a huge company. (read, Fortune 20) The workflow is somewhat broken. I don’t have a permanent desk, phone, or computer. The management seems smitten with me, but I haven’t done anything yet to deserve the sentiment. In fact, I can’t see where my personal work ethic is going to fit in here at all. Lemme explain.

I *love* to work. Actually, I like to work *hard*. I’m not happy unless I’m busting my ass, in fact. [1]

Herein lies the rub.

Statement that needs supporting arguments #1:Corporate America doesn’t lend itself well to highly-motivated individuals in the technical field.

Now, find me a marketing or high-power sales guy, and they are always moving, always pushing. They’re reading all the sucess and sales tomes from the local Border’s, and doing something new nearly daily to get better and eek out one more sale or another busniess relationship. They’re usually on some commission basis, so the more they push and shove, the more money they make. It requires a continual personal reinvention.

Warning: Strong personal opinion aheadf this reinvention, however, is not one of substance, yet of appearance.

Let me elaborate.

It’s been said that perception is 99% of the truth. In that vein, many marketing and management types are driven to present the appropriate visage to their customer base. In fact, you’ll find “7 habits”, “Fish”, and “How to Win Friends…” on many managers desks. Alongside these perennial tomes (did I really use “tome* twice today?) of corporate enlightenment, you’ll see reports about nothing, statistics that inaccurately reference false figures deemed important, and employee records filled with inaccuracies and untruths.

(Wow. Is that cynical or what? The ideas are coming so terribly fast that I can’t keep up. Bear with the schizo post for a minute, will ya?)

For instance, In a recent contract I went to a site that did printing. Large-scale printing. The site seemed very well laid out. Apples on the desktops, big computer room. Heavy internet presence, and a freakin’ sweet Xserve implementation. (don’t kill me, John. I know it isn’t your fault, but your predecessor’s)

This computer room is in the most horrid shape one could imagine. The network area has been cleaned up a bit, but could still use about 192 hours of straight attention, re-racking, mapping, etc. And that’s just the physical side. One can only imagine the networking disarray. (If their admin is as good as he seems, the networking part is in much better shape, to be sure). (this doesn’t even begin to touch the computers…)

This machine room has a window into it, and a very nicely racked series of Dell servers and disk arrays are properly lined up right in front of the window. It really looks beautiful, but it obscures the evil disarray immediately behind it. Such is the corporate world.

My meaning here, to synthesze the opinion + anecdote, is not that you actually learnthe precepts presented in these books and such, but to have enough familiarity to convnce your customer that you have it all together. (or your boss, or your friends, or your parents, etc.)

I firmly believe that there is enough of a disconnect that the country spends all its time doing its best to try and fool their target into not hassling them instead of actually putting in the man-hours and completing the job in the first place. Similarly, the managment of this country has found a way to think damned near everything is more important than actual productivity. (weekly three-hour productivity meeting to discuss why you’re not productive, anyone?)

Technical folks find themselves dragged into this world of deceit in varying degrees. The disconnect between actual, technical, measurable work and having to give the semblance of actual, tecnical, measurable work is humorous at best. In fact, I’ve found in my personal experience that management has been so sold their new set of ideals that when you enumerate your workload, their incredulity is almost comical…their numbers don’t reflect that you’re busy during that time.

I think that the key to the futre of corporate America (and the technical world in particular) will be to eliminate the ridiculous amounts of middle management, while increasing actual technical bodies. Next, those people need to be assured 80 hours of direct classroom training yearly. (there’s more of them now, remember? they can handle one guy being out for a week at a time) Finally, machine-produced statistics and reports should be acceptable to those managers that reman and they need tohave the skill to read them, or they don’t need to be tecnical managers.

Statement that needs supporting arguments #2: The high number of bad techies in high-paying jobs is a crime

If the people I’ve come into contact with thus far are any indication, I have a bit of reason to be *VERY* upset.

I’ve spent a lot of years trying to learn to be better at what I do. I have spent *THOUSANDS* of my own money to have the latest books and documentation on topics that I have had to work on. I may never work on them again, but I keep the documents around just to have that resource for my company. I spend time going to Linux shows and join professional organizations just to be better. Just to be worthy of the title “Senior” in Sr. UNIX Systems Administrator.

Since I’ve been here, I’ve met people who couldn’t work their way out of a system down if their lives depended on it. In fact, in a company of thousands, I’ve met one guy that has demonstrated and level of qantifiable skill. He is a greatUNIX admin. Consequently, all the work in the organization gets filtered (somehow, magically) to his work queue.

Now, in seeming opposition to my former statement, should I work somewhere where I will get quite a bit of transferred work from people who don’t want (or are unable to)to do the work themselves?

I think not

…more to come…