Title: BIG FUCKING Q!
Music du jour: Denis Leary, No Cure For Cancer
What an extremely... interesting day this has been. And I do mean that in the Chinese curse sense of the word. The Love Letter virus only hit a couple of our people, but since we're on an Exchange server... well, our Windows guy has had his hands full. I am currently trying everything in my power, and some that aren't, to get some files from one server to another one. Only the first box is locked down so tight it barely knows its own name. So compiling ssh is impossible, ftp is impossible, getting in and out is IMPOSSIBLE. I am now reduced to splitting the tarball into floppy-sized chunks and am formatting nine floppies to haul the damn thing over to the new box.
Gah.
Being a sysadmin is one big interruption. If you are one, you already know this. "We need IE on the Solaris box! Wait-- there's a virus on the Exchange Server! Hang on -- install Redhat on this-- oh! And you need to copy over these fi-- wait! Ahh!"
Heh.
But you know... I actually love this job. I really do. I love fixing peoples' problems and being their best friend for at least ten minutes. I love figuring stuff out. I love playing with big ol' T-1 lines and routers and servers. Being an artist by birth and instinct, this job is a challenge for me, constantly. I've learned to multi-task like I never thought I'd be able to from being a sysadmin. When you have to deal with six different things at once, it can be frustrating. But at the end of a day like today, when I've been putting out fires as soon as they flare up and jamming on problems left and right, I can work twelve hours and go home knowing I made some kind of difference. Saundo, my BOFH mentor, says it best.
And I really, really, really love this job in particular. It's extremely satisfying to learn something new every day. How many people get to look forward to Monday, because they get to go to work? I fully admit to being a workaholic -- Ian or Cynthia can tell you that in half a second -- but this is only true when I like going to work. I avoided Spumco as much as possible when I was there. Now, I look forward to what my day at work will bring, and working ten and twelve hour days is nothing. And that rocks.
-- marcie.