In a few minutes, it will be July 28th on the West Coast, marking the start of national Sysadmin Appreciation Day. This is a fine idea. Sysadmins are the secret masters of the world, the tireless workers in the data-centers who quietly keep the Internet and its constituent PCs up and running. Sysadmins get more off-hour phone-calls than surgeons; for that matter, a good sysadmin is better to have around than a surgeon.Here is the sensibility of what Avrom Fleishman thinks is the core of the New Class in a perfect gem of an example. Consider these markers:
• Being precisely conscious of time zones, and expecting that readers may come from any place and time zone.
• Comparing sysadmins with the high status job of the old technology, surgeon.
• Measuring how essential a job is by the number of off-hour phone calls it gets.
• No snark or ambivalence – unlike, say, President of the United States, this job really matters.
• And, of course, assuming that all readers will know what a sysadmin is.
A new class culture is being assembled all around us. It is fun, as well as rich sociology, to chart it as it rises.
3 comments:
You got that right. As a sysadmin and db administrator for many years, it's nice to be appreciated, even if it's just when things are going badly. (hmmm... it seems like there is a metaphor in there somewhere...)
Thanks for checking out boingboing -- sometimes strange, often irreverent, occasionally offensive -- but never boring.
I wonder if you might do a post on a Top ten links for cultural exegesis? Maybe even make it a meme for the Presbybloggers ring?
I have been thinking about a student project for next summer on knowledge class humor. We might call it "Onion Camp."
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