Reg readers tell us what they wanted for SysAdmin Appreciation Day

System Administrator Appreciation Day is here – so what lovely gifts did your employer lavish you with today? Did you arrive at work to a guard of honor? A case of Château Lafite Rothschild? A free holiday? Last week we previewed the special day, which is always celebrated on the last Friday in July, 24 hours in which …

[chivo243]

Unless you work in Education

There isn't a soul around this time of year, no one to shower you with gifts and praise, should be moved to September 29th to include all sysadmins...

[Pirate Dave]

Re: Unless you work in Education

Or Sept 20th so it can follow Talk Like A Pirate Day.

[MrDamage]

Re: Unless you work in Education

Make it the 19th. That way if we don't get what we want, we can get "carried away" with our role play the following day.

[ChoHag]

Re: Unless you work in Education

You expect sysadmin day to be held on a day convenient for sysadmins?

[DailyLlama]

I got the same as most of you...

Absolutely sod all.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: I got the same as most of you...

Ours were rewarded with the start of the rollout/transition to entire new systems, which will continue over the weekend. Stock management/ordering/delivery/everything all singing/dancing stuff. :-)

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

I am surprised ...

a suitably modified cattle prod wasn't high on the list (next to the quicklime and carpet supply)

[David 132]

Re: I am surprised ...

Modified cattle prod, you say? Allow Eddie and Richie to demonstrate...

[Pete 2]

The easy life

Make your sysadmins life easier. Just for once RTFM, or try switching the box off and on again before calling support. Then, when the number of annoying interruptions decreases by a large proportion, t'mamagement will realise they can get by with far fewer sysadmins.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The easy life

re: "Just for once RTFM"

A-men, brother. Lost count of the number of times I had to bite my tongue to keep from responding "I answered your question, I posted the answer where you could see it, but I can not read it for you and I can not understand it for you." I get that not everyone has the same skills and strengths, and that not everyone has a technical background (or interest), but even so I am given to believe that some people are more interested in kvetching than in having a solution. (Not a sysadmin, btw -- far from it -- but the one on whom interwebby tasks get dumped.)

[Martin-73]

Re: The easy life

the flipside of that is if they read the manual, they might become a 'power user'... and i don't think sysadmins like them much

[Outski]

What do I want?

Service Desk to read the damn KBs before escalating an issue

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: What do I want?

. . . or to ask even the most basic diagnostic questions such as "What is the error message?", "Is the device powered on?", or "Were you dropped repeatedly on your head as as small child?"

[NATTtrash]

Re: What do I want?

"Can you tell me where "any key" is, because I have a message on my screen that says "To continue press any key", but I can't find it."

[doublelayer]

Re: What do I want?

or to ask even the most basic diagnostic questions such as "What is the error message?"

This is the one I wish I didn't have to ask so often. People often come to me reporting either "It gives me an error", or with some inaccurate paraphrase of the error text. It's on your screen and you're calling me. Is it too much to ask that you call me before you dismiss the message? If you're calling me later, take a screenshot, write it down, copy it into an email, leave the box open, whatever you need to do so I get the text the computer wanted me to see.

Not long ago, a user translated "This site has an invalid security certificate because it has expired" into "My antivirus software wants to control my system's certificates". I'm not even a sysadmin or helpdesk person, but I still get this too often. My profound sympathies to those for whom this is an even more frequent experience.

[Version 1.0]

Appreciation Day

"The Register is my Lourdes, where I go for spiritual refreshment... a place where you're least likely to be bitten by a wild goat or have your data eaten by Google."

(Originally Brendan Behan but updated today).

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Free computer hardware for the SysAdmin!

Found in a public electronics recycling bin. This mouse makes computers really slow but I bet you can fix it.