The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.
This personal blog is about developing myself to become a better sysadmin. I write these articles to push myself to what I want to achieve: Keeping agile, create a vibrant working environment where our team has time to finish challenging projects and help users in need with a personal touch.
In 2014 I couldn’t handle the pressure to do my job as a sysadmin anymore. It weren’t the technical sysadmin challenges I faced, but all the other “incidental circumstances” that were pilling up. I couldn’t keep my machines up to date or invest time to rol out Munki for example. Keeping my skills up to date was even unthinkable.
It was time to reboot, otherwise I would become a “BOFH”. And I really didn’t want to become one!
It was Vanessa White’s webinar (Link to youtube) that tricked me to read Tom Limoncelli’s book: Time management for sysadmins. Also inspired by the Apple sysadmin community members (for example: Greg Neagle, Ed Marczak, Richard Trouton, Duncan Mcracken, Kevin White, Andrina Kelly, Charles Edge, Arek Dryer, Mike Dodge and many more) to develop myself on the following chapters:
- Linux sysadmin to replace (OS X server), better support our web developers and advance my knowledge about OS X.
- Learn a scripting language (Python).
- Learn time managent the proper way to help me and my team members.
- Agile (workflows) for sysadmin projects.
So the articles I’m writing aren’t only technical, but also about project management, keeping agile and even conceptual ideas for sysadmin. It serves as documentation for me, and I hope it’s useful to others.
Cheers,
Patrick van Nerum
Sysadmin at Willem de Kooning academy
Netherlands
Patrick van Nerum’s blog 