(OT) Not your usual e-mail from Ken...

[travis at scootz.net]

Heh, join the club. I worked at an internet advertising company (banner
ads). When I started I had 18 linux servers all running different stuff, all
getting fixed when something broke (fix one box at a time rather then all at
once), basically a nightmare. I set up 20 new machines and shipped them off
to LA, replaced all the boxes in Cambridge. They were all EXACTLY the same
(with the exception of the IP address of course). I set up change control,
release schedules, automated EVERYTHING. I also did some work on some
internal servers, added redundency, documented all kinds of stuff.

Then I got laid off with a couple weeks severence, on unemployment for 9
months, now I work in a shithole for $11/hr babysitting printers for a
junkmail company and getting bitched at when their stupid Personal Web
Server gets hacked but they won't let me actually do anything to secure it
or switch it to Apache.

Ahh, gotta love this market!

At least I'm better off then my friend that's been out of work for 2 years
after getting laid off, and is now all happy to be a security guard at a
post office.

> Howdy, all.  A good friend of mine, and an excellent sysadmin, just got
> his job chopped; the BoD decided that three sysadmins for 140 users was
> too many, so now they're down to -one-, and he's looking.  Regardless,
> my friend is well-versed in both 'doze and Linux (does his own kernel
> compiles, helped support a multi-Unix/Windows server environment), and
> has lots of aptitude.  If there were -any- way I could hire him, I
> would.  But I can't.  (I tried to a year ago, but he was happily
> ensconsed at the time.) If anyone is looking for a really good
> mid-level (experience) sysadmin, with senior-level potential, please
> let me know, and I'll zip his resume along.  He lives in south Nashua,
> and would be willing to work within a reasonable distance of there, as
> well as parts of eastern MA.
>
> Thanks, and sorry to be a bother, as well as off-topic, but I _HATE_ to
> see truly good people let go for dain-bramaged political reasons.
>
> -Ken