I thought this was actually quite well written: honest but not hyperbolic, and not glamorizing the hard work like you see in many ads ("must be passionate about

I thought this was actually quite well written: honest but not hyperbolic, and not glamorizing the hard work like you see in many ads ("must be passionate about widgets!"). No ping-pong tables or free lunches, and even a bit sheepish about the social activities---in contrast to semi-mandatory drinking sessions sold like a perk. My only complaint (albeit a big one) is that if they recognize the job is undesirable, they should be compensating accordingly, so that ad should have included a salary range and a range for the vacation days. Btw, a great book for surviving an environment like this is Time Management for System Administrators by Thomas Limoncelli. I'm not a sysadmin, but it has a lot of good advice for developers also.