Sometimes I wear a sysadmin hat. I do it for myself because I like tinkering with my computers. I do it at a lab in UPB to help my dad. I do it with a friend on our Slicehost virtual server where we host our websites. It's fun, challenging, and I've learned a lot of useful stuff.

There's always a "client": the students and faculty at the UPB lab, Tudor on the Slicehost server (and, well, myself at home). You'll have to ask them if I'm doing a good job of mananging those systems; anyway, I'm aware of the importance of providing good service to them.

Well, yesterday I had a really nice experience: I needed an internet-facing server to host the web application I'm working on, so I can show my progress to interested parties. And, for a change, I wasn't the on-site sysadmin; that was the job of my colleague Anton. So I went to him and explained what I needed; in less than an hour the thing was working to spec. Thanks Anton, I could get used to that. :)

[Update: be sure to thank your local sysadmin on July 25th: sysadminday.com]