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*                                                            *
*                         CYBERSPACE                         *
*         A biweekly column on net culture appearing         *
*                in the Toronto Sunday Sun                   *
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* Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer                                  *
* Free for online distribution                               *
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*   <kamamer@yahoo.com>                                      *
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I had a friend who was a sysadmin (aka a system administrator, 
aka The Network Guy). I'll call this friend I had Atilla. I'll 
also stress the "had."

Before Atilla became a sysadmin, he was a happy tech support 
rep. He never raised his voice except in song. He always 
greeted you with a friendly, humble smile. Needed a kidney or 
someone to mediate a debate about the Reform Party for a couple 
hours during the afternoon coffee break? Atilla was your man.

When the ruling sysadmin was quietly, bloodlessly deposed, 
Atilla got promoted to the position. He installed Windows NT 
Server. His personality changed. The smiles and offers of vital 
organs vanished. Atilla became bitter, arrogant, grumpy, 
intolerant, curt, and sarcastic. He put on some weight.

Normally I'd be concerned if someone manifested so radical a 
personality change. I'd take up a collection for an MRI scan at 
a private hospital in Buffalo. One has to move quickly when you 
suspect a brain tumor. But I had seen Atilla's symptoms before. 
He was acting like a sysadmin. Any normal sysadmin. It's part 
of the job.

When you understand the psychology, motivations, and 
environment of sysadmins, a radical change in personality isn't 
all that surprising. If Atilla had not changed personalities, 
I'd have been worried.

Understanding, caring for, and, yes, occasionally feeding your 
company's sysadmin can produce dramatic improvements in the 
quality of your job. Do you really think your computer gets 
upgrade or serviced on some schedule approved by management? 
Sometimes. Other times, your sysadmin will have nice bits of 
surreptitiously purchased hardware in a drawer that he could 
install in your system... if it was worth his time.

You see?

Don't over do it. Sysadmins can spot a simple lickspittle. Boot 
lickers are held in lower contempt than the average "luser." 
Luser is the less-than-affectionate term used for users. Lusers 
have problems. Lots of them. But eventually a luser gets around 
to helping a sysadmin diagnose the source of a problem. A user 
that acts like are no problems is simply trying to hide a 
problem or, worse, trying to fix **it** on his or her own.

Sysadmins actually get excited when they're able solve a 
problem based on the disjointed ramblings of a mindless luser. 
In much the same way Freemasons try to trace their origins back 
to ancient temple builders, the Secret Society of Sysadmins 
traces shared ancestry back to priests at the Oracle at Delphi. 

As a luser ("Hi, my name is Karl. I'm a luser."), understand 
your sysadmin will never truly be happy. The best you can do is 
keep him from going postal or giving your 20" monitor to a VP. 
No matter how much time you devote to listening to him complain 
about management, his lousy pay and hours, and the other 
lusers, he will never be your friend. Sysadmins have no time 
for friends. Don't feel sorry for him, however. He likely has 
pet or a sailboat. That's all he truly needs in Real Life. 

The most important thing you can do for a sysadmin is never 
intimate that any Microsoft product serves a purpose other than 
to make life difficult. 

The Usenet newsgroup alt.sysadmin.recovery is a good place to 
figure out what sysadmins really hate (you) and what they 
really like (command-line interfaces). The group's FAQ is 
maintained at csel.cs.colorado.edu/~crosby/asr. Much collected 
wisdom can be found at www.xnet.com/~raven/Sysadmin.html. The 
Tech Tales web site (www.techtales.com/techroom.html) can help 
you understand why sysadmins hate lusers so much.  

When you begin to empathizing with your sysadmin's suffering, 
you'll get some real work done. Don't offer him **advice**, 
however. Act like you are part of the evil machinery that works 
to make his life difficult and your only hope of salvation is 
his deep knowledge of networks, hardware, and how Microsoft 
could have done it right if he was Bill Gates.