Dogbert: I’m going back to my old job as a network systems administrator.
Dilbert: Why?
Dogbert: I’m attracted by the potential for reckless abuse of power.

I have extensive experience in this domain, nearly 11 years worth. I have specific pages for Apache, DNS, Exchange, Linux, and Windows. Please see those for specific examples. Here are some more general skills in the are of system administration.

Public Relations

Don’t think this is a skill of a sys admin? I would beg to differ; I think it is the most important skill. At one point I lamented to a co-worker, “I think the T in IT stands for therapy.” I’d worked in enough IT departments where there existed mutual hostility between IT and everybody else. On one side of the fence the idea was, “the user is a twit”; the other side thinking, “this IT guy is an arrogant ass.” Who was right? Well, both were.

The users needed clear and distinct information that helps them do their job. If this means you sometimes take a few extra minutes to create a resource (like clickable links to add printers to a computer) or to make some humanizing small talk with your office mates, you should, that is your job more so than anything else. Are users helpless at times? Yes, nobody can deny that, it’s a mice-and-cheese problem. You control half of the equation though. Meet them where they are and I guarantee you’ll have more success stories than stories about hopeless whiners.

In a previous position I made it a point to try to add a bit of pro-activity to my daily routine in order to change the prevailing attitude there of, “where the hell is the IT guy?” I would call an office and ask if they had anything they needed as I’d be, “in the neighborhood” on my way to lunch. This gave them a sense that I was present and available. When it came time to enact some downtime on the network and services they used for an office move they were amenable and prepared just from this brief contact once a week. It’s just a function of operant conditioning where you give them more positive encounters than negative.

Macs and OS X

I am a total Apple fanboy, I won’t lie about it. I was a Mac user since before Apple was doomed. I strayed from the path using Linux as my primary OS for a long time but wandered back in 2005 with the purchase of a shiny MacBook Pro. In a support environment I’m more than happy to support them.