Re: Interesting.CN
- From: John Burnham <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:28:52 +0100
On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:24:51 +0000, Brian Kantor wrote:
I get the distinct impression that people with imagination and
multi-talented skills are seen as a danger rather than a benefit.
They're strongly into "teams".
There's nothing wrong with teams per se. I have a very good team - 3
embittered Unix Sysadmins and a networks guy. They all have imagination
and they're all multi-talented.
The leader of the new Borginization is a guy who told me that the email
system I run for the campus would easily be replaced by a MSexchange
server.
Hah ha ha ha ! Oh, you're serious.... Exchange kinda works for smallish
departments who want all the combined calender functionality crap. Hell,
my mailbox at work is on an Exchange server - but that's work email and I
don't really care too much about it. Fortunately, the Exchange server is
well protected from the big bad Internet by proper mail servers run by
some incredibly competent people (and I'm not just saying that because I
know some of them read this group).
Somehow no one informed him and his lieutenants ahead of the coup about
all the spam and virus filtering, the 20,000 maildrops, the 95,000
customers, the mailing lists, autoresponders, and gateways, the 900
mailhosts we front-end for on campus, &c.
All of which a halfway sensibly designed mail system can deal with.
Exchange, on the other hand, will turn up its toes and die after about 10
minutes of frantic swapping (during which time it'll polish the surface of
the disk clean). I hope to god we never end up like this. I doubt it given
that some of the people involved in such things are very sensible and
given we developed one of the major MTAs here.
Last week I told them. I don't think they were ready for it. I hope
they're folks who can admit they've got a problem and revise their plans
BEFORE the fire is licking at their crotches.
MS-Weenies ? I doubt it.... I had to deal with a prime example yesterday
who swore blind that his Windows print server had never listened on port
515 despite the reams of evidence I provided to the contrary. The fact
that printing from certain systems that communicated with his server over
port 515 had ceased working didn't seem to trigger any form of connection
in his tiny brain.
I'm PROUD of the network services we provide, many of which are mine -Of course you are - any decent sysadmin worth their salt should take pride
design, implementation, maintenance.
in their work, otherwise why are we doing it ?
I don't want to preside over the emasculation of stuff I've spent half aIt's truly soul destroying and I've resigned from two places where new
lifetime on, and on which thousands of researchers depend on every
minute.
people came in and were intent on changing everything I'd spent years
setting up. They were higher up the chain of command than me - a manager
and director respectively - and I realised I was fighting a losing battle,
so I quit rather than have to watch my work go up in flames.
I had planned to comfortably keep doing what I enjoy doing here for
about five more years, and during that time, train my successors, then
retire to NZ or someplace. Now I'm looking at more immediate options in
case my fears are realized.
Well, for what little it's worth, you have my sympathy. If you're eligible
for retirement in 6 months, you could grit your teeth and try to last it
out. It may well suck but just keep singing the great song of indifference
to yourself and count the days.
J
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