[TriLUG] OT - home work assignment

[Magnus Hedemark]

On Sun, 7 Mar 2004, Chris Knowles wrote:

> That having been said, just thought I'd see if my experience is
> typical.  I work for a small company (~150 people) non tech company. 
> I'm titled a "Network Operations Coordinator" which is HR talk for
> "Network Administrator/System Administrator, but if we put administrator
> in his title we have to pay him more."

I think companies are brazen enough now to give you the "System 
Administrator" title with the "Network Operations Coordinator" pay scale.

> I'm sort of a many hat wearing computer guy.  I admin several systems,
> and control great chunks of network too.  

I think this is the norm now.   Look at the job listings these days.  It's 
rare to find job req's for purely one discipline in System/Network/DB 
Administration.  The sad thing is, there are a lot of multi-discipline 
guys out there now that don't know how to properly tune a database for 
maximum performance, how to secure their servers and automate 
administrivia or how to properly customize their router/switch 
configuration to suit their environment.  I think there are a lot of guys 
out there that can do one or two of those specialties, but not all three.  
The DBA types can squeak by with doing less these days as exponential 
leaps in hardware performance over the years can somewhat obscure 
professional buffoonery in their field.  System/Network Admins don't have 
this edge.  In my ten years in this field I have seen a sharp decline in 
the expertise and depth of knowledge in most Sys/Net/DB Admins likely due 
to this consolidation of roles.

And you know what?  I don't blame the admins.  I blame the managers who 
figured they had met someone once who could do all three somewhat 
competently and figured it was wise to assume that they could find others 
to do the same.  Few companies can justify the cost of hiring specialists 
in the three major disciplines when the competition is consolidating also.

It's a bit too early for a proper rant, but had I seen this a little later 
in the day I'd figure a way to work offshoring into this discussion.