7 ms·

I always love to imagine the havoc it would wreak if Sysadmins went on strike...

by Roritharr 8y ago

Ntrails 8y ago
Much like the bankers, the world would largely just keep running.
- citation_please 8y ago
  I think we're merely highlighting the distinction between what level of responsivity a job actually requires. Those who deal with things that require near-immediate attention (janitors, sys admins, doctors) would stop the world. Everyone else the world can (by definition of responsibility) continue without any issue for awhile, and maybe at worst stagnate. I think this might be a completely orthogonal concept to measuring how "bull shit" a job is, despite how often it gets brought up in this context.
  - perfunctory 8y ago
    The article actually touches on this point. It doesn't claim that we don't need financial system. On the contrary. In fact, while bankers were striking people recreated their own financial system of some sort. Only it turned out you could do it more cheaply without mega bonuses.
    - deathhand 8y ago
      Bankers is a very broad term. "High financiers" are bankers and so are people who work at a bank who do not get 'mega bonuses'. The article was talking about the latter.
  - foxhop 8y ago
    I would like to add farmers, plumbers, utilities workers, and anyone who keeps ISP networks online, to your list. There are very few doing the essential jobs.
    - citation_please 8y ago
      I agree with your list! Except with your use of the word essential, because I was trying to draw attention to the fact that these jobs are highly reactive, which I think is orthogonal to how essential they are to society (i.e. not "bull shit"). As a counter-example, I think everyone who is currently working to reduce environmentally-damaging emissions of industrial processes are essential to society, but if they all disappeared tomorrow it would have little immediate impact.
- rini17 8y ago
  Banking and few other things can be replaced by whiteboard, but not everything ( https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-45247499 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-45247499 )
- code_duck 8y ago
  For a time. I think the situation would be similar to an auto mechanic strike - everything keeps working until it stops working, at which point society would start to experience considerable hardship.
- maze-le 8y ago
  Right up until someone in your company decides it is a good idea to introduce this new piece of infrastructure...
hw_penfold 8y ago
The result would be mixed and scattered. Basically, we see exactly how it unfolds when a ransomware epidemic breaks out. Ransomware, in many ways tying people hands, such that an outage occurs. In many areas, servers would chug along undisturbed. In other areas some of them would halt, either requiring input from some attended task, or because of a fault of some kind. Two other considerations would remain variable, per specific scenario: remote sabotage in the form of zero days appearing in coordination with strike activities, or local on-prem sabotage, in the form of erased disk drives, unplugged cables, or physical damage however subtle. The remote sabotage could involve a nation-state advanced persistent threat swooping in, or sympathy attacks from external groups which may or may not include those striking, to exacerbate the circumstances. Meanwhile on-prem monkey wrenching would have to occur immediately prior to a walk-out/lock-out. So, pretty much the same disposition as any other strike, but with the added quirk of remote access, except any or all of the servers could theoretically run problem-free for the duration of the strike, and predicting which systems go down and when would almost always require insider knowlege to accurately estimate. Meanwhile, everywhere this happens, people in need of a database would just do stuff in Excel, and snailmail USB sticks everwhere. Once that starts happening, it’s anybody’s game.
dagw 8y ago
Unless the sysadmins had a big powerful union (or sabotaged the system on their way out the door) their tasks would just be handed off to other computer literate people in the company who would end up becoming de facto sysadmins.
- lithos 8y ago
  I'd love to imagine them taking online help articles down for the duration of the strike. Blogs/whatever overflow/forum posts/similar.
  - colonelpopcorn 8y ago
    I thought about Stack Overflow going down for a minute, and I got really scared.
  - eru 8y ago
    That would take a world-wide strike and no strike breakers. Unlikely.
    - kazagistar 8y ago
      Doesn't need to be worldwide. A single tech company having everyone strike would be enough.
      - eru 8y ago
        They could still hire strikebreakers world wide, or not?
  - antisthenes 8y ago
    That's sort of crossing the line between refusing to work and doing deliberate sabotage. Especially if the help articles are on an internal network.
- beauzero 8y ago
  I used to think that until I worked at a couple different places as developer/sysadmin which was due to not being"core product". There were several systems that would have ceased functioning within a week and we're never allocated requested funds because "that's what we have you for."
protonfish 8y ago
Yes, because I have to have a sysadmin to run all my computers at home... Sysadmins in an org are there to stop you from doing things, not help you.
- no_one_ever 8y ago
  Only if your computer is a black box isolated from the rest of the world...
- jcadam 8y ago
  Yes, every company I've worked in, there's been an adversarial relationship between IT and the regular users. Software Engineers are especially hated by sysadmins.
needlepont 8y ago
Not so much these days with the devops reaction. Now you need to package your work and a good remote worker can figure out what is needed in a few minutes. Not a bad thing for either party TBH. Sysadmins can chase butterflies when they burn out and 3rd worlders get a remote gig to pay for food.
snackbugs 8y ago
The sysadmin field has always seemed more conservative in my experience. When I hang out with them or spend time in online spaces where they talk, water cooler discussions wander into things that seem informed by right-leaning perspectives. I feel like many sysadmins would proudly and happily scab or cross picket lines.
kamaal 8y ago
It will mostly be developers taking over their jobs and sysadmins being replaceable getting more pronounced. In fact in most companies this is always the case. They routinely lay off sysadmins, qa and other support personnel and ask developers to take over. I'm now seeing trends of tech leads sort of roles doing the same jobs as a managers. If your job involves some prime mover to which you are just a helper/enabler, its likely you can be easily eliminated.

I always love to imagine the havoc it would wreak if Sysadmins went on strike...

Ntrails 8y ago

Much like the bankers, the world would largely just keep running.

citation_please 8y ago
I think we're merely highlighting the distinction between what level of responsivity a job actually requires. Those who deal with things that require near-immediate attention (janitors, sys admins, doctors) would stop the world. Everyone else the world can (by definition of responsibility) continue without any issue for awhile, and maybe at worst stagnate. I think this might be a completely orthogonal concept to measuring how "bull shit" a job is, despite how often it gets brought up in this context.
- perfunctory 8y ago
  The article actually touches on this point. It doesn't claim that we don't need financial system. On the contrary. In fact, while bankers were striking people recreated their own financial system of some sort. Only it turned out you could do it more cheaply without mega bonuses.
  - deathhand 8y ago
    Bankers is a very broad term. "High financiers" are bankers and so are people who work at a bank who do not get 'mega bonuses'. The article was talking about the latter.
- foxhop 8y ago
  I would like to add farmers, plumbers, utilities workers, and anyone who keeps ISP networks online, to your list. There are very few doing the essential jobs.
  - citation_please 8y ago
    I agree with your list! Except with your use of the word essential, because I was trying to draw attention to the fact that these jobs are highly reactive, which I think is orthogonal to how essential they are to society (i.e. not "bull shit"). As a counter-example, I think everyone who is currently working to reduce environmentally-damaging emissions of industrial processes are essential to society, but if they all disappeared tomorrow it would have little immediate impact.
rini17 8y ago
Banking and few other things can be replaced by whiteboard, but not everything ( https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-45247499 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-45247499 )
code_duck 8y ago
For a time. I think the situation would be similar to an auto mechanic strike - everything keeps working until it stops working, at which point society would start to experience considerable hardship.
maze-le 8y ago
Right up until someone in your company decides it is a good idea to introduce this new piece of infrastructure...

hw_penfold 8y ago

The result would be mixed and scattered. Basically, we see exactly how it unfolds when a ransomware epidemic breaks out. Ransomware, in many ways tying people hands, such that an outage occurs. In many areas, servers would chug along undisturbed. In other areas some of them would halt, either requiring input from some attended task, or because of a fault of some kind. Two other considerations would remain variable, per specific scenario: remote sabotage in the form of zero days appearing in coordination with strike activities, or local on-prem sabotage, in the form of erased disk drives, unplugged cables, or physical damage however subtle. The remote sabotage could involve a nation-state advanced persistent threat swooping in, or sympathy attacks from external groups which may or may not include those striking, to exacerbate the circumstances. Meanwhile on-prem monkey wrenching would have to occur immediately prior to a walk-out/lock-out. So, pretty much the same disposition as any other strike, but with the added quirk of remote access, except any or all of the servers could theoretically run problem-free for the duration of the strike, and predicting which systems go down and when would almost always require insider knowlege to accurately estimate. Meanwhile, everywhere this happens, people in need of a database would just do stuff in Excel, and snailmail USB sticks everwhere. Once that starts happening, it’s anybody’s game.

dagw 8y ago

Unless the sysadmins had a big powerful union (or sabotaged the system on their way out the door) their tasks would just be handed off to other computer literate people in the company who would end up becoming de facto sysadmins.

lithos 8y ago
I'd love to imagine them taking online help articles down for the duration of the strike. Blogs/whatever overflow/forum posts/similar.
- colonelpopcorn 8y ago
  I thought about Stack Overflow going down for a minute, and I got really scared.
- eru 8y ago
  That would take a world-wide strike and no strike breakers. Unlikely.
  - kazagistar 8y ago
    Doesn't need to be worldwide. A single tech company having everyone strike would be enough.
    - eru 8y ago
      They could still hire strikebreakers world wide, or not?
- antisthenes 8y ago
  That's sort of crossing the line between refusing to work and doing deliberate sabotage. Especially if the help articles are on an internal network.
beauzero 8y ago
I used to think that until I worked at a couple different places as developer/sysadmin which was due to not being"core product". There were several systems that would have ceased functioning within a week and we're never allocated requested funds because "that's what we have you for."

protonfish 8y ago

Yes, because I have to have a sysadmin to run all my computers at home... Sysadmins in an org are there to stop you from doing things, not help you.

no_one_ever 8y ago
Only if your computer is a black box isolated from the rest of the world...
jcadam 8y ago
Yes, every company I've worked in, there's been an adversarial relationship between IT and the regular users. Software Engineers are especially hated by sysadmins.

needlepont 8y ago

Not so much these days with the devops reaction. Now you need to package your work and a good remote worker can figure out what is needed in a few minutes. Not a bad thing for either party TBH. Sysadmins can chase butterflies when they burn out and 3rd worlders get a remote gig to pay for food.

snackbugs 8y ago

The sysadmin field has always seemed more conservative in my experience. When I hang out with them or spend time in online spaces where they talk, water cooler discussions wander into things that seem informed by right-leaning perspectives. I feel like many sysadmins would proudly and happily scab or cross picket lines.

kamaal 8y ago

It will mostly be developers taking over their jobs and sysadmins being replaceable getting more pronounced. In fact in most companies this is always the case. They routinely lay off sysadmins, qa and other support personnel and ask developers to take over. I'm now seeing trends of tech leads sort of roles doing the same jobs as a managers. If your job involves some prime mover to which you are just a helper/enabler, its likely you can be easily eliminated.