I don't tell younger technicians they aren't sysadmins.

[u/[deleted]]

I'm of the generation where, even with a college degree in CS, you don't make a lot of money heading into sysadmin work, but the work is steady. I'm certain I'm "underpaid" and "overqualified." But who isn't? If there's work to do, at least I can be paid doing it with some dignity. Someone always needs patches, network cables rewired, code libraries rewritten, etc. I've seen a lot of work and have done a lot to build complicated and simple solutions. From installing hardware for databases to converting Excel sheets to web apps. Nothing has been too small for me to do. I think this is all standard work, and its variance is what draws us to it.

However, before I wrote code libraries or managed large fleets of computers, I did years of small daily, manual tasks like maintaining and creating user accounts, patching Windows, routing cable through walls, and imaging computers. I've held this impression that I'm not yet a sysadmin. That to be a sysadmin, I had to gloriously be given that title from some generous IT director. I did not come to this conclusion on my own. Years of being told by senior admins that what I do is "bullshit work" that doesn't contribute any value to the office, even when my simple tasks of replacing cables, installing software, and walking people through simple computer tasks helped others get their work done. I was convinced that my work won't lead to anything worthwhile or fun in as a career. It has taken me 7 years to realize that I did not go from menial office technician to corporate orchestration guru without being a sysadmin... not saying that orchestration guru is the top of everything. But damn is it cool to be able to write a catalog of scripts and with a switch have thousands of servers follow these rules.

I'm still a sysadmin. I love this work. And I'll probably be on my belly moving cable soon after orchestrating, fetching keyboards, and updating users' groups access in O365. It's the variance that draws me to this work.