title: An Admin's Life link: https://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2006/04/04/an-admins-life/ author: lembobro description: post_id: 746 created: 2006/04/04 01:03:00 created_gmt: 2006/04/04 01:03:00 comment_status: open post_name: an-admins-life status: publish post_type: post

An Admin's Life

As I write this one of my colleagues is still at work, waiting for a very important group of MS Exchange accounts in a particular Active Directory container to get rebuilt. The problem started earlier today when I did a quick mod to a production script that we thought would clean up some cruft in that container. Instead it (quite predictably, in hindsight) whacked all the user accounts in the container, about 100 in all. After a couple of hours a strategy was agreed upon to repair the damage, and the process begun. So here we sit and wait. My friend, who is the lead Exchange admin, in front of a console at work and me, here in my basement waiting for the phone to ring.

Everyone who’s ever worked as a sysadmin knows these kinds of humbling moments. The good part is that you tend to find out who your friends really are. While it doesn’t quite erase the sense of defeat and hopelessness that surround such situations, it is nice to see the team at work together on a problem. On that note I count myself privileged to be part of this team. Although alot has changed over the last 8 years, the one thing that hasn’t is the sometimes overwhelming generosity and kindness that sets my co-workers here apart from those in other places I’ve worked.

Copyright 2004-2019 Phil Lembo