Ask HN: Does system administration dumb down the brain?

installing something is boring and kind of dumbifying, sure. but if you're a system administrator who solves problems, optimizes and tweaks, i could imagine it being engaging enough to be interesting.

One might argue that heeding road signage, signaling, and lane discipline impairs the driving experience.

It is, nevertheless, necessary.

<sarcasm>i agree, let's forget the computer altogether, it's much smarter to write code with pencil and paper</sarcasm>

You can make it fun by writing scripts to automate whatever the task is while you do it. Then, at least, you only have to do any given sysadmin task once.

I usually find it interesting to set up things I haven't used before. Tweaking conf files can be as gratifying as tweaking code... it only becomes boring if you are doing the same install/config over and over.

Of course, most things are boring if they are repetitive.

From alt.sysadmin.recovery FAQ v1.799999999999999998... [http://www.faqs.org/faqs/sysadmin-recovery/]

  Perhaps Abby Franquemont summarized the life of a sysadmin the best, when she described us as:

  "disgruntled, disenchanted with things we used to really get a kick out of,
  foul tempered, hard-drinking, heavy-smoking, overworked, with no real social
  life to speak of."

  Or perhaps she was being optimistic.

I have not had responsibility for the operation of a large computer and communication system since the dinosaur era, but I found the work so repetitive and tedious that it motivated me to go back to college and get an EE degree.

Over a decade of lurking on asr shows that some sysadmins preserve sharp perceptions, wide-ranging interests, and pointed communication skills.

Are you designing (1), or supporting? Whether you are programming, administering, PM-ing, or doing something else, I find the question pertinent.

If you designing, actively creating, you are likely to be engaged. If you are merely supporting others, you are more likely to be neglected and relegated to repetitive tasks as well as "clean up" for others' mistakes.

In good part, I find it a matter of control. If you do admin work, but are allowed to find, create, and implement better ways of doing it, you are likely to be engaged. If someone else is telling you what your environment will be (in minutia), what your tools will be, and basically turning you into a glorified button pusher, you are likely going to suffer. (I base this in part on your presence in this forum. I've met plenty of people who are more than happy to just push the indicated buttons.)

In some of my more engaging work, my technical role was pretty mundane. But it was a tied to a group of people who were having trouble getting their act together. By listening to them and getting them to talk to each other, openly and directly, I changed to process from a morass to a success. Thus my mentioning PM and other work. I find that often it's not (just) what I'm doing, but what kind of control I have. Almost always, I see opportunities for improvement. If I'm allowed to pursue those, I'm happy. (And I do so responsibly, communicating my efforts up the chain of command and documenting things.) If I'm not, well, I'm still learning to get out fast. I've already squandered more than enough time on "the way things are supposed to be".

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1. not meaning the current tendency to associate "design" with UI design

I'm an admin, and certainly can relate to what Abby says. However, I can also code in half a dozen languages, and often fix things with a few lines of expect and shell, where our enterprise java cowboys would demand a new server with a java app server and still can't do a complete job of it. Being a sysadmin was fun in the early 20's. Now getting close to 30, I get high on Scala, the finer points of TCL etc. I do worry about the future though.