Learning and Loving the System Administrator Job

Ian! D. Allen – www.idallen.com

Winter 2015 - January to Apil 2015 - Updated 2017-09-05 02:38 EDT

1 Decoding Your IT SysAdmin Career PathwayIndexup to index

http://blog.cbtnuggets.com/2017/01/decoding-your-it-sysadmin-career-pathway/

We talked with some of our expert trainers and they weighed in on what certifications and training would set you up for a successful SysAdmin career. […] Trainer Shawn Powers makes a strong argument to include Linux, particularly the LPIC-1, early in your SysAdmin career. If you get stuck or struggle with LPIC-1, consider backtracking to Linux Essentials to fill in the gaps.

“Linux continues to dominate in the data center, so having advanced knowledge and problem-solving skills makes for better technology decisions.” With Linux so prevalent in the lives of SysAdmins, there are lots of reasons to go open source.

“Being a system administrator is more than knowing the tools and systems,” Shawn continued. “It really requires the ability to think outside the box. Learning [Linux] ultimately prepares you to be a system administrator, which makes you far more valuable as an employee (or potential employee).”

2 So You Want To Be A System Administrator?Indexup to index

Sysadmin devotion to duty

Is Computer Systems Technician the career path for you? Do you really want to do sysadmin work?

I still maintain that if the tech has no independent interest in technology and just regards it as a job, it will be an ongoing battle to keep the tech up to date with the latest developments or to elicit any form of enthusiasm or excitement for the work. Having a tech who is engaged and excited about new technology becomes particularly important during a rollout, where the tech is uniquely positioned to influence users’ attitudes toward the changes in their environment. Rollouts can cause considerable stress to users who are now required to learn a new product to perform their job function. Having a tech who is excited and engaged with the new product will encourage and reassure the users. – Traits of a top-notch support technician

3 On Work and Liking What You DoIndexup to index

Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow, and the day after that. Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you’d be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. Don’t let life randomly kick you into the adult you don’t want to become. Hadfield’s reddit chat, quoted on forbes.com

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

Author: 
| Ian! D. Allen, BA, MMath  -  idallen@idallen.ca  -  Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
| Home Page: http://idallen.com/   Contact Improv: http://contactimprov.ca/
| College professor (Free/Libre GNU+Linux) at: http://teaching.idallen.com/
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