RE: RE: present day admin skills

["Paul D. Robertson" <proberts () patriot net>]

On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Robert Graham wrote:

> > [... people are incompetent ...]
>
> I disagree.

I don't.  You seem to equate malice with the term, and the truth is that 
they're not competent to run the systems they have.  

> It is easy to pick on the weak.

When they at leat to some extent control the fact that they're weak in a 
field that demands strenght, then yes, it is easy- one might also add 
appropriate under most cases.

> Because of the explosive growth in the Information Technology industry, most
> people have had their IT jobs for only a few years. This means the majority of
> IT employees are "inexperienced".

Inexperienced isn't the same as incompetent.  I spent the first few 
*months* of my career learning how to program and manage mainframe 
systems.  Shortly thereafter, I was the one who was most responsible for 
all administrative tasks as well as programming and troublshooting 
applications I didn't even have the source for.  A few *years* is long 
enough to get a basic competency on a wide range of platforms.

> When I went to college, even "Computer Science" degrees were new. Universities
> only now begin to offer "Management Information Sciences" degrees. This means
> the majority of IT employees are "underqualified" (where "qualification" means
> some sort of diploma in the field).

I've sure done a heck of a lot of "unqualified" work over the last 18 years ;)

> The number of IT job openings exceeds the number of computer geeks. Most IT
> professionals pursue other interests when they go home at 5pm. The most
> important factor in acquiring higher skills is interest. The phrase "I don't
> have time..." really means "I'm not willing to sacrifice other things...".
> Having a balanced life is normal - therefore, most IT professionals are
> "unskilled" relative to abnormal, obsessed geeks.

Shirking professional responsibility is irresponsible.  We wouldn't accept 
doctors who decided they didn't have time to learn the correct procedures 
and tools, we wouldn't accept engineers who didn't add in the lessons 
learned in the period up to now, and we shouldn't accept it from systems 
administrators.

Competence doesn't mean you *have* to spend extra time, it means you have 
to spend the time necessary to perform well in the discipline you've 
chosen.

> You might ask: "...then why are they in the technology industry if they are not
> interested in computers?" IT professionals ARE interested in computers, just
> not obsessed. Most people have many interests in life. They will pursue
> whichever interest generates the most money - which is Information Technology
> at the moment. [1]

I've done a fair measure of non-technical things over the years, and that 
never stopped me from learning enough about systems to manage them in the 
real world.  If the system manager doesn't take professional responsiblity 
for the systems they manage, then they're at fault at some level.  

> The IT field is huge, people have to work in lots of different areas. People
> solve problems quickly in their area of expertise, and therefore spend most of
> their time in areas that aren't their expertise. Let's say that you know both
> PERL and VisualBasic, but are expert in only one of those languages. If I give
> you a problem and tell you to write two equal solutions in both PERL and VB,
> you are going to spend most of your time working with the language you are NOT

This illustrates the issue though not in the way you look at it- we're not 
talking about where you spend time, we're talking about spending time at 
all.  I've never programmed in VB (though I've used other BASIC dialects 
in the distant past)- but I wouldn't accept a position that required it 
without learning enough about it to be competent.

> an expert in. If you statistically sample all IT professionals at their desks
> right now, you'll find them working in areas they are not expert in because
> they have quickly solved the other ones. Therefore, when casually working with
> IT professionals, they definitely seem "inexpert" at their jobs. [2]

Most IT "professionals" I've interacted with recently who have "senior" in 
their titles aren't competent at that level with *any* part of IT.  A fair 
number of them haven't solved anything because they're incapable of it.

> THE PRIMARY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SKILLS DO NOT RELATE TO TECHNOLOGY. First of

If you're a systems administrator, then you need the technical skills to 
administer the sytems you're repsonsible for.  Different people get those 
different ways, but abdicating that responsibility is not a professional 
action.  Worse-yet it's a disservice to both the users and the 
organization.

> all, there is basic communications skills, teamwork, and not playing mindless
> geek dominance games of "my OS is bigger than your OS". Geeks make poor
> employees (I'm a good example -- I would never hire myself). [3] More
> importantly, though, IT is just a means to an end. Most people in IT have
> specific tasks to do, and simply choose IT as the most efficient way of doing
> them. An incredible number of people "drift" into IT - they've been working on
> the same sets of problems over the past 20 years, but since they've been using
> computers to solve the problems for them over the past 5, they have officially
> become IT professionals. Example: an accountant who no longer does anything but
> programming and db maintenance. It comes as a shock to many geeks that the goal
> of IT isn't IT, but business.

People who administer systems are responsible for the correct and propper 
operation of those systems.  People who administer firewalls are 
responsible not only for the firewall, but for the protection of the 
networks behind them.  

The harm from incompetence comes to the people trusting that administrator 
to do their job professionally.  It comes to the other sites that have to 
share the 'Net with them, and it comes to the organization paying them.  
None of these are good things.

There are *lots* of ways to learn- from mailing lists like this one, to 
books, manuals, courses and even trial and error.  To abdicate learning 
because of anything is to abdicate responsiblity- and that's why things 
are the mess they are.  It needs fixing, and the only way for that to 
happen is for people to take responsibility.

> It is easy for the top 10% most educated professionals to look down on the
> bottom 50%, in any field. No, a nurse cannot save a patient's life by doing an

I don't equate education to competence- in fact I've often turned down 
"educated" candidates.  I'd rather have a nurse working hard on her pre-med 
than an incompetent doctor working on his golf game- fortunately at least in 
the US there's a mandate for some baseline of competence for doctors.

We're at the stage that doctors were at before medical boards and things 
all got worked out- that's my major issue with certifications- there are 
still more competent people without them than with them, and many of those 
seeking them are doing so because they don't have the experience to show 
competence.

> emergency heart transplant, but it doesn't mean he/she is totally unqualified.
> Nurses do all the real work of interacting with patients, changing bedpans, and
> keeping track of the paperwork - they often command more respect than the
> arrogant doctors. Health-care is more about "care" than it is "health". To

What if those nurses weren't competent at nursing though?  That's the core 
issue, being competent at the job you're supposed to be doing.

Airlines rely on mechanics, but not to fly the planes.  

> Getting the job done is more important than how you do it. As an employer, I

People administering servers now aren't getting the job done, they're wasting 
time going around the job because they don't know how to do it, and instead of 
learning how to do it, they're perpetuating the myth that they're doing it.

> need to get certain tasks done within certain budget constraints (all problems
> are easy if you can throw enough money at them). This frequently means avoiding

You don't necessarily need to throw more money at things when your staff 
is competent.

> high-priced gurus and hiring low-priced people of lesser skills. Indeed, one of
> the best IT people who worked for me wasn't tops on skills, but knew all the
> right high-priced consultants to bring in to solve bits and pieces of the
> problem - solving the problem much cheaper overall.

That's not an IT person, it's a project manager.

> programmers have books on administrating Unix/Windows systems. It is easy to
> spot what field people are working in - look at the books on their shelf, the
> ones that appear new are the fields they are NOT working in. Insecurity is

The last three technical books I bought were directly related to projects 
I was working on or in the design phase of.

> fear, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, HATE LEADS TO THE DARK SIDE.

You need a distance-vector dark side protocol- you're taking a path that's 
much too long ;)

> I enjoy these:

I didn't follow the links, but the phone one is my favorite Dispair one-
I'd get it and put it up if I didn't think it'd be more trouble than it's 
worth to defend.

> [1] This paragraph reiterates the one immediately preceding it. I repeat the
> point because I'm an obsessed geek, so while I understand this point
> intellectually, I still have a hard time grasping it emotionally. I'm told that
> some people actually have "hobbies" that aren't related to computers; this does
> not make sense to me.

I'm as hard core a geek as anyone- there's an AlphaServer 2100 heating my 
living room, but I don't think that's mutually exclusive with having 
hobbies (I've lost count of the number of cameras I have for instance.)

Paul
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul D. Robertson      "My statements in this message are personal opinions
proberts () patriot net      which may have no basis whatsoever in fact."

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