when last we saw our hero (Monday, Aug 05, 2002),
Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom was madly tapping out:
> from the thread about *nix zealotry:
>
> On Wed, Jul 24, 2002 at 04:49:03PM -0500, Daniel Taylor wrote:
> > I guess exchange combines these functions and is way cool and
> > integrated so people like it who haven't had access to the
> > functionality for 15 years already.
>
> this reminds me of something that occured to me at the TCLUG
> meeting, and I think should be aired out. (even tho the flames may
> get a bit warm again).
>
> at the meeting, the estimable Mr. Ulrich (who is a fine and generous
> fellow and generally Has a Clue, even if I don't always agree with
> his conclusions) made a comment to the effect that "if the end user
> belives they need something, then they need it". To which I
> half-jokingly made the comment that "as an administrator, my job is
> to make my job easier, end users be damned".
>
if i mught put a little clarification behind my words uttered at
the meeting (thanks for the kind words btw - i don't expect everyone
to agree w/my conclusions.)
if users believe that having a certain bit of functionality will make
their lives easier and they're in touch with their jobs and understand
the value of a particular tool then far be it from a sysadmin to stand
in the way of their having a necessary tool.
from where i've sat it's the responsibility of the sysadmin to provide
services to users and support them. that said - when a user goes down
a particular path that is fraught with problems, they (the system
administrator) need to come up with workarounds for the problems and
alternative solutions.
i don't think anyone questions the value associated with email, and an
address book and we have good analogues for this functionality within
the open source community via mailservers and ldap servers, etc.. one
need not run exchange in order to have this functionality within
outlook. (i'm taking the stance that outlook, while evil as a viral
petri dish isn't the real evil at issue - that being exchange)
the real missing component is shared calendar and scheduling
functionality - someone poo-poo'd this functionality saying that
people "think" they need this functionality. well, i'm an end user
that really needs this functionality. i'm on the road an awful lot of
the time working with customers and going to conferences, if people
want to schedule me for a conference call or a meeting they need to
have access to my schedule. we have a tolerable solution for this at
work that works on a variety of platforms. i hate outlook/exchange
w/a passion but i'd give my proverbial left one fror a decent meeting
maker replacement.
> I should like to qualify my comments, lest I be thought a lazy,
> unprofessional weenie, and have all other Linux users dragged down
> with me. ;)
>
> Us administrators do have an obligtion to make the end-users more
> productive. This benefits us, since the usual way to make users more
> productive, is to make their tools more reliable and usable; when
> tools are reliable, users don't bug you as often because something
> is broken, and you can go do more productive things. ;)
>
> This is why I say "my job is to make my job easier". :)
i don't think anyone would argue that a sysadmins job is to make their
job easier. that to me, is the definition of a sysadmin. but when the
day is done - a system administrator has to have things in place to
insure that while the customer (end user) may be shooting themselves
in the foot, the bullet is reliably delivered. sometimes that means
additional pain for ourselves.
> the thought that "the end user is always right" is emblematic of a
> salesperson mindset. the salesperson is always looking for ways to
> sell something; so they try to appeal to the end user in the
> simplest and most readily-understandable way possible.
>
> the administrators who have to deal with the stuff that the
> salespersons sold the end-users, know that end-users often *aren't
> right* because they don't have enough experience to know what's
> good, what's bad, and what else is available. (on the other hand,
> they know their job better than the administrator does, so they have
> a better grasp of what problems they need to solve).
i think we're in harmony here.
>
> There are also problems with the way geeks/admins (if I may lump the
> two together for a moment) communicate, versus the way salespeople
> communicate.
>
> Salesdroid says to the end-user "here is a solution for this
> specific problem". -- salesperson is speaking the user's language
> (i.e. giving them a simple solution to a percieved problem, and not
> requiring them to think about it).
>
> Geek/admin says to the end-user "here's some tools that you can put
> together in lots of cool ways to solve lots of problems". -- geek is
> speaking geek's language (i.e. giving them many solutions to many
> problems, but requiring them to think about it and learn).
>
> one could substitute "Windows admin" and "UNIX admin" for
> "Salesdroid" and "Geek/admin" respectively, and I think the analogy
> would generally hold true.
>
> at this point, I should probably state a solution; rather than just
> griping about a problem. However, since I don't have one, maybe
> someone else out there *will* have some good suggestions that we can
> listen to. :)
>
{ snipped - misc .signatures }
--
steve ulrich sulrich at botwerks.org
PGP: 8D0B 0EE9 E700 A6CF ABA7 AE5F 4FD4 07C9 133B FAFC