[geeks] Lazy co-workers....

[Bill Bradford]

On Thu, Oct 21, 2004 at 12:42:17AM -0400, james wrote:
> That job is long gone - we were bought by Mickeysoft and I declined a
> job and left. No way was I working for them.

I really cant complain about how things have ended up here.

I was hired basically because they liked my resume, the previous admin
had been fired (not laid off, but fired), and they needed someone
YESTERDAY.  

Shortly after I started, I went through things like DNS, system monitoring,
email flow, etc, and did some  much-needed improvements, and started the
path to getting rid of sendmail everywhere and replacing it with Postfix.

Six months after I came on, my manager/team lead (we had three sysadmins here
for ~75 people) was laid off.  He had been with the company six years, and
I'd only been here six months.  Me and the other sysadmin (he was primarily a
Windows guy) continued on, with about 65 people.

I continue to manage the UNIX-based email for pretty much the entire
company, as well as continued DNS improvements.

Three months ago, I implemented (at no cost other than man hours) a company-wide
antispam and antivirus filter using Postfix, Amavisd-new, SpamAssassin, and 
ClamAV.  We're now blocking about 70% of all incoming mail as invalid.

The Windows-based virus scanners that were previously pegged, are now sitting
mostly idle.

Two weeks ago today, they made the announcement that the Austin office will
be closing as of November 30th (something they've been wanting to do for 
years).  My co-sysadmin was laid off.  I'll be in charge of shutting down
this office, then opening up a smaller facility here in Austin for the ten 
people remaining here.

The company is relocating me to Houston (headquarters), with a REALLY nice
relocation package.  I'll be working on "big projects", as the head of IT
thinks I'm wasted on doing day-to-day user support.  Almost a month ago, 
the company paid for me to take an entire week off and go through the 
RHCE cram-course and certification exam (I passed with a 96.7%).

I can honestly say that years of ISP/telco experience with DNS, sendmail,
Postfix, and then the SunHELP/SunManagers stuff has saved my job more than
once. :)

As for the "lazy coworkers" aspect... When I was but a wee PFY, it seemed
that the senior/head sysadmins screwed around and goofed off a lot.  In the
years since, I've learned that once you get what needs to be done, done - 
you have plenty of play time.  The more experienced you are, the less time
it takes you to get things done.

There's also my thought, "Being a good sysadmin isn't necessarily about knowing
everything there is to know off the top of your head - a key skill is being 
able to look good while you figure out the solution to a problem."

"If you cant blind them with brilliance, baffle them with BS while you look
 it up in the manual."

Bill

-- 
bill bradford
austin texas