Category Archives: Frustrations

Careful, your contempt culture is showing…

I recently (I say recently…about 6 weeks ago…getting new blog posts out takes a while these days!) came across a tweet from someone I used to follow (who I’m now blocked by) that they thought was utterly hilarious: I, however, did not. I really really hate this kind of joke. And I’m probably more sensitive to it than most. I’ve… Read more »

Women’s stories from the tech trenches – and how *YOU* can help!

(Warning: this is post is LONG!) I gave a talk with this exact title at Ignite the Tour in Sydney, on 14th February 2019. It was a 15 minute lightning talk, and I barely scratched the surface of what I wanted to get through – but something is certainly better than nothing! So I then submitted it as a talk… Read more »

The two words an IT admin should *never* utter…

It’s mid-afternoon. The phone is silent. The job queue is pretty empty. You’ve done the project work you wanted to get done for today. “Jeez it’s quiet!” Don’t ever…EVER…say this. All you are doing is risking Murphy’s Law to come along and whack you up the back of the head with an unexpected hardware failure, or a VIP who’s managed… Read more »

“Explain Yourself!” – Explaining What We Do, While Trying to Keep Everyone Happy

This post contains all the material that I used in my Ignite Australia 2017 Hack@Ignite talk (and I did an interview about it as well!). I received a few requests to either post this online or for myself to give this talk to helpdesks/service desks. If you want to use this yourself, I have absolutely no issues with that –… Read more »

This is what a handover should look like

So I was recently thrust back into my team leader’s (TL) position again – albeit for a much shorter time for this stint, only three weeks. My previous stint was for just over 6 weeks last year…can tell you now, I much prefer the shorter stints!  One of the biggest issues I have with being put in these kinds of roles… Read more »

IT Pros – we need to take better care of ourselves!

Earlier this year I became aware of a movement within the Ops community – HumanOps.com This is something I’m fairly passionate about. Those of us who keep the lights on, keep the computers going, keep the servers whirring, keep the network lights blinking…we’re not machines. We’re only human. We are fallible. We make mistakes and hopefully we admit to them! We… Read more »

Ownership vs. Responsibility – the fine line of a sysadmin

One of the biggest issues I’m noticing in the industry is that we’re still seeing sysadmins taking “ownership” of certain things. For example, I’ll hear people talking about “my” servers or “my” service or “my” tickets. I know I’ve been guilty of this before (I’ve referred to the DC’s at work as “my DC’s” many many times) but I’m trying to… Read more »

We say this shit for a reason: the sysadmin story

(Thanks to Colin for the title that I pilfered from a Twitter conversation…) So, if you’re not a sysadmin, I’m guessing there are things that we do (or make you do) that really really get on your nerves. That’s fine. We all have that. I still lie to my dentist when he asks if I’ve flossed (Mr Dentist, I totally have….promise!)… Read more »

How to: send an email when a server reboots…including who and why!

So, I was told that this might make a good blog post, so thought I’d be a good person and share (because that’s the kind of person I am). A bit of background: If you follow me on Twitter (and you totally should), over the last few days you may have seen me wearing my ranty pants due to some issues… Read more »

Lessons learnt from an “Oh crap, shit be broke, yo!” moment…

So, if you’re a sysadmin with a few years under your belt, chances are you’ve already had an “Oh fuuuuuck…” moment or two. Something has gone horribly wrong – you may have even been right in the middle of it all when it did! Well, just recently, I was involved in one of those. I won’t go into too much… Read more »