Eschew Obfuscation

As part of my new job, there have been several things that are different due to the nature and size of the company.

First, I have the wonderful opportunity to work with a bunch of brilliant people every day.

Second, I get to travel from time to time to our off-site facilities.

This week, I’ve been able to combine the two and have been on the road with three other guys from work.

With few exceptions (to be exact; severn, including the Dunkin Donuts safari), it’s been great. We’ve gotten a bunch of work done and had a good time.

When talking to one of my coworkers, we agreed that the road trip is a pivotal event. You either leave and come back better friends or leave and decide that you never want to go on a company road trip again.

In my case, I would go anytime with these guys.

Thank you gentlemen. It has been my pleasure.

written by halfdime

As a present to my wife and me, my mother came down to visit us and watch the kids for a couple of days whilst we went to Disneyland to celebrate our anniversary.

First of all, I’d like to say, “Mom. You ROCK!”

Secondly, I want to talk about the odd behavior that was had by me at Disneyland.

Having done automation and control a bit in a previous job, going to Disneyland is part entertainment, part fantasy and part occupational curiosity. On California Screaming [0], we spent the 10 minutes before and after riding looking at the control systems for launching the cars (a magnetic drive system). We rode Pirates of the Carribean looking back often to find the location of as many cameras, doors and control system components as possible.

I even went so far as to wonder what their maintenance records looked like to find out how they “prove” that the rides they’re making are safe.

The trip was great. I can’t wait to go again. I wish that I could go on a tour of the operation of the park.

I love to find out how things work.

[0] This is a GREAT ride. It’s not overly scary and is a long, enjoyable coaster.

written by halfdime

Not too much to say about this one.

Just go read it.

written by halfdime

• If you come home at o-dark-thirty and your wife says, “You’re home early.”…
• If you have a computer that’s over ten years old and you’re lamenting you can’t get RAM for it…
• If you can’t name all the layers of the OSI model but know which layer http is on…
• If you hate programmers (because you would’ve written it better)…
• If you’ve thought of killing someone for top posting…
• If you know of more than 2 IRC servers that are poorly configured…
• If EHLO makes perfect sense to you…
• If seeing SYNACKRST makes you twitch…
• If you’ve ever typed, “AFK. WMA.” into an IRC chat…

Ah the things I think about when moving.

Oh, and for those of you so inclined, meet the bumper dumper.

My favorite t-shirt image from the site:

written by halfdime

Having been doing the sysadmin gig for awhile now, some things have become abundantly clear.

• DNS, email and pretty much all core services are only sexy to other sysadmins
• Long hours are part of the game at times

Friday was a reinforcement day for me on the second one above. Sometimes there’s nothing to do but bite the bullet and put time into the problem.

The positive from this was that I got the thing working for our customer.

The negative was the time away from my personal affairs.

The true take away for anyone just starting out as a sysadmin, IMHO, is that you shouldn’t be shocked when things go terribly, horribly wrong and you have to spend the night at work. It happens. Hardware will fail. Someone has to fix it or do the restores.

What *SHOULD* shock you is if this is the normal situation at your work.

For example:

When I decided that I was going to look for work, I applied at my current employer and another company that shall henceforth be dubbed DysfunCo. I had already interviewed with $employer and was talking salary before I went to interview at DysfunCo. The two gentlemen (PHB #1 and #2) that interviewed me are programmers promoted to management. The following is paraphrased excerpts of the interview.

PHB #1: “We’re looking for a sysadmin to help our developers any way they see fit.”
PHB #2: “It’s really important that the candidate enable our developers to keep their creativity going.”
Halfdime: “Can you give me an example of what kinds of things you’re looking for?”
PHB #2: “We really need a broad based specialist to help us liaise with our corporate headquarters.”
Halfdime: “What’s your relationship with corporate like?”
PHB #1&2 (together): “Oh. They HATE us.”
PHB #1: “Yeah, remember the dhcp incident?”
Halfdime: “What was that?”
PHB #1: “One of our guys was working on new appliance and he needed to have it be a dhcp server. So he plugged it in to the core router here and it started handing out leases on the wrong network. Everyone in the office was down for like two days until he realized he was the cause of the problem.”
PHB #2: “Yeah, those guys in corporate were pissed. Good thing they never found out it was us!”

What followed the numerous tales of what they allow to keep their staff from having their creativity stifled was embarrassing. When they finished and asked me what I thought I would do to help them out, I gave them an hour long treatise on how broken their organization was and that any sysadmin worth hiring would start by setting boundaries.

They didn’t call me back.

I’ve thought about sending them a bill for two hours of consulting.

The morbid curiosity in me hasn’t grown enough for me to reach out to my contacts there and find out how long the guy that DID take the job lasted.

If you’ve made it this far, I would like to wrap this one up with another thanks to my wife. She put up with the horrendous hours I had at my previous job every May through October and is as unflappable as they come. She keeps me grounded and reminds me of what’s really important.

Thanks for being patient honey. You rock!

written by halfdime

For all that there is to talk about, nothing can compare to the 10th anniversary of the best decision I’ve ever made.

All of the many rich blessings that I enjoy would be nothing without my lovely wife.

If you know her, please thank her for her patience, kindness and great attitude while putting up with me these ten years.

I would be less than nothing without her and want the world to know it.

written by halfdime

It’s been quite some time since I first ran across Giving good report but from time to time, I come back to it just to keep myself in check.

If you’ve never read the paper, you should. [0] It’s by a gentleman whom I’ve never met named Richard Threadgill.

Basically, it is a plea to all technical workers to keep management informed about what they’re doing. For many of you, this may seem a simple concept but I’m pretty sure all of you know someone that is being described by this paper.

I’m lucky enough to have a boss that has been amongst sysadmins for a very (VERY [1]) long time and understands the oddities common in our profession. He’s good at extracting the information if someone isn’t good at giving it.

[0] Yeah. I just should on you
[1] I’m talking Multics old.

written by halfdime

My wife has started blogging recently (actually, before I did) and has been spending quite a bit of time on making her blog nice.

Tonight, she asked me if I would like to blog on her blog as well as this one.

One caveat though:

“You have to blog in English.”

As an explanation, she went on to speak of my lack of speaking in English when I’m talking about what I do.

Interestingly enough, I’m struggling to come up with what I think is valuable content for this blog. I can only imagine the drivel that would arrive on my wife’s lovely new space if I have to provide non-technical content.

Wish me luck!

written by halfdime

I’m getting around to reading my google reader.

Of course I’m behind. Shut up!

So I see this one Jonathan Schwartz’s Blog: Give it Back and quickly recognize it as an April fool’s joke. The best part of the read is the last paragraph and one of the reader comments (no, it’s not me).

The reader posts this horror from the past as his response to Schwartz.

written by halfdime

Tonight I was approached at the end of the day by two folks I’ve been working with quite a bit lately.

They had a fairly urgent request and wanted to make sure that it was handled tonight.

Nothing unusual, right. Our users are constantly in need of some unplanned, “my crotch is on fire” item.

To me, the notable item in the exchange was that the two of them felt it was important enough to get this done that they would come down to our offices to make the request and address any concerns.

I think it’s very important for sysadmins to be approachable. Yes, we say no often, but how we do it can be as important as that we do it. Specifically, in this instance, the two were ready for no but knew that asking would give them an honest assessment at worst and a yes at best.

They were very pleased to get their yes. The fact that they felt that they could talk to me (and my group) is, to me, the major win here.

You see, whether my users like me personally or not, I want them to trust me. I want them to seek my counsel even when they know it may not be what they want to hear.

written by halfdime \\ tags: j