HEY, SENIOR SYSADMIN FOLKS want a job?

[rmd]

my company, upromise.com, is looking for a senior sysadmin. we're also looking for a dba and some other jobs.

if you're interested, shoot me your resume here and i'll forward it on to the right people.

Comments

[catness.livejournal.com]

Hey, does Rich O'Neal still work there?

[rmd.livejournal.com]

he does indeed. he used to be my boss but we added a layer of managegment and now he's my grandboss.

[catness.livejournal.com]

I loved working with that guy. He was the bomb. I hope he's still awesome to work with/for. :)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

he's still awesome to work with/for.

[muffyjo]

grandboss, eh? Heh. I like that. He needs more grey hairs.

[catness.livejournal.com]

Wicked cool. ;) Let him know I say hello, won't you?

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

45 spindle adaptor icon?

[catness.livejournal.com]

Yes. One of three. ;) I have a passel of the things lying about the house, and they're one of my favorite graphic images. Someday I'll use one for an album design, maybe my next one.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Ah, now that one I've seen before. Not your icon, by the actual design. I'd not seen the multi-holed one before, it's pretty spiffy.

[wotw]

This drives me nuts. Why oh why are you encouraging people to save
for when the kids go to college? Surely it's far more expensive for
the kids to not go to college! That, I would think is
the contingency you want to save for.

If the kids go to college, your family's future income (even net of
education costs) will be going up, not down. That's the case where
you want to borrow against your future good fortune.

If they don't go to college, that's the case where they're gonna
need more support and a bigger inheritance. The less likely they are
to go to college, the more you ought to save.

How is it that the whole world has this backward except me?

[catness.livejournal.com]

I don't think anybody has it backwards. It's just that "paying for the actual education" is an incredible financial burden which parents often choose to take on for their kids, and it's gotten to the point that working/paying for your own education while going to school isn't as fiscally feasible as it once was. Not everybody is scholarship material. The way I understand it, upromise is saving for the education itself, not for the honeypot after graduation.

[wotw]

But...but...but...

It's still the case that if the kids go to college, the total pot
(parents' income plus kids' income minus education costs) is going
to be bigger than if they don't go.

With a bigger total pot, everybody--both the parents and the kids--
ought to be living better, starting now. If there's going to be
money in the future, you don't want to wait till the future to start
spending it.

When the total pot is smaller---that's when everyone should be scrimping
and saving.

[skreeky]

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around your world where parents save up to support their children after they are no longer in school, so they can live beyond their own means.

Wow.

[wotw]

You don't think giving them a college education is a way of supporting
them after they're no longer in school?

[skreeky]

No, I think it's giving them a tool to use in order to support themselves.

[skreeky]

Clarification:
where parents save up to support their reasonably healthy, functionally intelligent, and able-bodied children

I mean, it's the difference between "I'll buy you a hammer" and "I'll pound your nails in for you for the rest of your life."

[wotw]

Suppose I make you an offer: Give me a dollar, and I'll give ten
dollars to your kids. Would this make you feel richer or poorer?

Surely it must make you feel richer. You can, if you want, let your
kids keep the ten---or you can negotiate with them and say "If I do
this I want five back". That's up to you. But your family as a
whole is richer now, not poorer. That means you need to save less.

College is an offer just like that: Give us money now, and we'll
give your kids a whole bunch more money back later. You can split
the winnings with your kids any way you choose to negotiate, but the
bottom line is that you just got richer and the pressure to save
should be reduced.

[skreeky]

Well, let's scale that. "Give me a dollar"... that scales to I make about one dollar per year to pay for everything I and my family need that year... and you don't get why people have to save up to get that lump sum dollar?

"Give me a dollar, and I'll give ten
dollars to your kids"
"I don't have a dollar."
"Oh. Well, sucks to be you."

[wotw]

If I'm going to turn your dollar into ten, you should be
borrowing the dollar, not saving it.

[drwex]

That presumes that such a level of borrowing is possible.
Remember that most of these parents are mortgaged up to their eyebrows and running high levels of credit card debt already. They simply don't have the wherewithal to borrow the quarter- to full-million it'll take to put the kid through. Sure, in an ideal world you're right, borrowing pays off in the long term. But in the real world such cash flow isn't always (or even very often) possible.

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

How is it that the whole world has this backward except me?

Probably because everyone but you is an idiot.

On the other hand, perhaps not everybody runs their family exchequer as one big pot into which adult children contribute. In the case where they do -- live at home, pay a share of the mortgage and expenses, etc. -- the "family's future income" is a meaningful number. Otherwise, it isn't.

[wotw]

I don't believe this. Most parents try to help out their kids
from time to time, even after they've grown, and most parents
try to leave positive bequests. If your kids are going to be
better off, you can afford to help them out a little less and
spend a little more of their inheritance.

Or, if you're the sort of parent who *doesn't* offer this kind of
help, then you can always quite cold-bloodedly negotiate with the
kids: "I'll pay for your college, but you can pay me back later
at a hefty interest rate."

So whether you're a very giving parent on the one hand, or a very
non-giving parent on the other---either way, an increase in your
kids' future income should allow you to live better, starting now.

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

If you're the sort of parent who doesn't offer help, then obviously there's no sense in saving something that you're not gonna give anyway.

If you're the sort of parent who does offer help, why then, there's no need whatsoever to save either, because of course you'll have an extra $45,000 per year to pay for college when the time comes. Assuming college costs don't go up between now and then. And they never do.

You could be the only person in the whole world who's right on this, but somehow I doubt it.

[slamonella.livejournal.com]

Probably?

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

w00, hot stuff, if only I was a sysadmin!

Lemme know if you ever need any tech writers or training people ;-)

(and hi after a long absence)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

HI!

[dianala.livejournal.com]

what exactly counts as senior and is it windows or *unix?

[dianala.livejournal.com]

I am not, of course, asking for me, but rather my brother in law :)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

SAGE description of a senior sysadmin (http://www.sage.org/field/jobs-descriptions.mm#Senior)

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

Oh, how technical requirements and expectations change.
Experience at sites with over 1,000 computers, over 1,000 users, or over a terabyte of disk space.
these days, it's pretty easy to find folk who have a terabyte of disk space on their home MP3 server :-)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

these days, it's pretty easy to find folk who have a terabyte of disk space on their home MP3 server

it's true!

[catness.livejournal.com]

Man, I am obviously hanging out with the wrong crowd, lately. ;)

[keren-s.livejournal.com]

I know someone who would be perfect! Oh wait....never mind. ;-)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

*sigh*