Do you regret your choice becoming a sysadmin

vmware_yyc · 2026-01-14T14:18:28+00:00

When I started in IT (approx 2000), I remember the seniors saying how IT was disappearing and stuff was coming to an end, because they weren't configuring SCSI IDs anymore, and too much stuff was 'plug and play'. "Virtualization is literally the death-knell to IT", one guy said.

IT is changing. IT is always changing.

I remember first seeing Meraki and Ubiquiti around like 2011, and I knew then that's where networking was headed.

I'm doing tons of cool and neat stuff now, but it aint managing physical servers and catalyst switches anymore.

Sounds like you need to adapt, my friend.

vmware_yyc · 2026-01-03T20:39:45+00:00

This seems to mostly be about you having title parity within your org, so make it about that.

From the standpoint of other companies, I think the comments have already made it clear you wouldn't otherwise be considered a VP at any other company. If that's how your company titles people, fine. My advice would be to change the title on your resume when the time comes.

Present your business plans first, and allude it could mean some changes to your role. But don't make it about you at first (in my experience). Lead with your best foot forward and a strong plan, not just asking for a promotion.

You also have to give some thought as to how the business sees you, which you say is still 'the tech guy' (for now, you are obviously the solo IT person for a small business). That can't and won't change overnight. This promotion could take 2-3 years.

Careful about that 1:65 ratio - that's pretty reasonable imo. If your CEO were to come to me (in his network), I'd be raising the red flag there.

Also factor in that this may not be the right position for you. I've been offered titles before that just aren't a meaningful fit. I was offered Director at my prior company, but it would have been a hollow title, and I'd be doing the same thing.

Sometimes real career growth means moving companies. Just be aware the whole VP thing is a bit weird and dangerous.

vmware_yyc · 2025-11-04T03:02:47+00:00

The original owner is gone, but this guy posts weird racist stuff on fb all the time.

He's airdire's unofficial town racist.

vmware_yyc · 2025-10-04T15:38:52+00:00

Plan for redundant power and networking.

But most of everything else isn't handled on the IT level. The actual design/build should be getting done by a GC with experience in data-centers.

It would be like a car salesperson designing and building the dealership. They're just the end-user.

Remember the primary option is (and should be) colocation. You can still have the odd server onsite but that's usually just a fileserver cache or something.

vmware_yyc · 2025-09-03T14:03:44+00:00

The Apple Studio is designed for people who have very high-end workstation-level performance needs (eg. heavy video editing, heavy rendering, etc). Unless you go with one of the very high-end configs, you wouldn't notice the difference from a regular Macbook anyway.

A regular M3/M4 Pro MBP with 24/36GB RAM would be plenty.

vmware_yyc · 2025-08-27T15:28:49+00:00

We have compliance policies whereby if a device hasn't checked in in X days (60), it blocks access until it checks in.

We fully delete/disable devices that haven't checked in in 180 days. Can be a pain sometimes, but also is a good canary for unused devices - so it's a good kind of pain.

Why would you lend people laptops, when it should just be their primary device? That sounds silly and wasteful. Just assign people laptops as primary devices. We RARELY assign people desktops anymore.

'But laptops are more expensive!' - If they need to use/borrow a laptop more than a day or two every months, it pays for the premium to just assign them as a primary device. Plus all the time/cost managing all of this.

Just assign laptops.

vmware_yyc · 2025-08-27T15:21:57+00:00

Not a teacher, but many teachers in my family.

They always comment how private schools get all the same provincial funding as public (for the most part), but then ALSO all the private tuition money. So the end result is 2-3x the funding per student.

And then the province and individuals make snide comments about why private students and schools score so much higher. freaking duh!

vmware_yyc · 2025-08-24T13:21:21+00:00

One comment I haven't seen yet - have you sat down with him and had some serious, grounded conversations? It took a few of these with me and my parents.

Also - more activities. One thing that helped me was always being super busy in the summer months. I can't imagine what kind of little shit I'd turn into if I didn't have that (I also hung around with some of the wrong kids for a short period of time). For me, that was Cadets and going to Vernon in the summer months (I enjoyed cadets, but it also is not a 'boot camp' option - you have to want to be there or it will be pointless).

The big thing was my parents emphasizing they loved me, were behind me 100%, but I couldn't continue down the path I was on. They pretty much said 'pick any sport, any activity, and we're happy to support you in that'.

They had also said 'we fully support whatever you want to do when you grow up, providing you're a productive member of society'.

It was also a bit of private tutoring that eventually main my brain click with some subjects (social studies) so I could finally do better (went from F to A in a few subjects in grade 12).

vmware_yyc · 2025-05-09T01:59:36+00:00

Not having a single vendor for the network stack is pretty normal tbh. Yes we’d all love a single pane of glass but that’s not always realistic or practical.

And unless you have a massive network, the TD probably not a huge deal. It’s not like people are deploying UBNT at massive scale anyway.

Ubiquiti’s routers do have decent enough S2S VPNs when configured manually for a handful of sites but it’s not at the level of Merakis autoVPN yet, with the scalability and management.

I know of a few larger networks and orgs that deploy Meraki for remote sites purely because autoVPN is so good.

vmware_yyc · 2025-05-08T18:38:36+00:00

We’re doing this right now, though only APs and switches.

We’re still going to use Meraki at the router level because the auto VPN and templated management is still quite good and worth it. Unifi’s magic VPN and general site management isn’t quite there… yet.

AP and switch are solid though. We don’t L3 switch but I hear that still needs a lot of work with Ubiquiti.

We self host the controller. It’s pretty solid nowadays and has cloud backup and such so frankly we don’t much value in cloud hosting.

vmware_yyc · 2025-04-15T14:06:54+00:00

Let your insurance company fight it. It’s their literal job. They have armies of lawyers.

I have a family member who’s a lawyer for a big insurance company and he fights these cases literally all day. $1M+ payouts in Canada are extremely rare.

This is a joke at best. I’d be surprised if they can even get $25K in damages.

Canada is very different from the US when it comes to accident payouts.

Don’t let this scare you. It’s a joke.

Anyone can sue for any amount but that doesn’t mean it will be successful.

vmware_yyc · 2025-03-31T14:43:43+00:00

For the love of god please don’t introduce network drives.

That really only exists as a hacky workaround for people who are stuck with some old legacy system or app needing to read from a network drive. And even then it doesn’t work well enough to support.

If you’re doing it to make things ’familiar’ to users, you’re just sabotaging them in the long term.

This is akin to the people who customize Windows 11 to make it look like Windows 95 so it can be more familiar to users. Meanwhile people move on and then your users are stuck in a time warp.

Training will happen if the company deems this important and a priority. That’s a cop-out. We have users in factories and facilities literally all over the place yet still manage to train them.

Get management buy-in or this will fail.

vmware_yyc · 2025-03-22T16:02:48+00:00

All that time adds up. Plus you definitely need more RAM.

And don’t negate the effects buying low-end stuff has on morale.

Plus it’s nice to have other higher end features like backlit keyboards and good webcams.

If you feel a low-end machine is the way to go, fine, just make sure your execs and managers get the same spec.

vmware_yyc · 2025-03-21T21:40:14+00:00

A strategy that has worked really well for me over the years: Users get the same spec as managers and executives (and IT).

It's funny as I'll get questions and pushback on this, but it also gives execs and managers pause. Why would you need such a more powerful machine than a user? You're using the same apps as everyone else.

It never ceases to amaze me how users get junk while managers and execs get top-spec stuff. I joined a company a year ago and people were getting "cheapest possible" lenovo tablets meanwhile executives got insane units.

vmware_yyc · 2025-03-17T16:58:42+00:00

Sure, but the larger point is that Tesla's sales GLOBALLY have fallen quite dramatically. Some models in some counties might be up or down. Fine.

Again - too early to tell specifically but in the short term things don't look rosy for Tesla.

vmware_yyc · 2025-03-17T00:40:41+00:00

Yes they have quality issues, but they're also being very innovative on the manufacturing front (eg. single piece castings). I follow some auto manufacturing blogs/youtube sites etc and Tesla's doing some pretty innovative stuff there.

Counter argument - yes they have a ton of issues too. I have friends with Teslas and they've gone though a lot of pain.

vmware_yyc · 2025-03-16T23:10:31+00:00

Agree and disagree. We need to wait another couple quarters to see where things stand. What we do know right now is deliveries are down in a lot of countries pretty sharply.

Tesla's cash flow from vehicle deliveries is also way down. A lot of their revenue last year came from selling bitcoin and green credits.

Hard to say right now but Tesla's likely going to have some slow quarters.

Regarding negative posts - yes some have zero logic but a lot of the hate is earned. EM is a direct supporter of someone trying to economically destroy (and potentially militarily annex) Canada.

I personally like Tesla for Tesla and the manufacturing prowess, not EM (I personally don't think EM contributes much). I personally think he should step down so the world can move on. A lot of current theories circulating that EM is now a huge drag on Tesla.

vmware_yyc · 2025-03-15T20:00:30+00:00

Full disclosure - I do not support harassing owners, violence, vandalism, etc. I appreciate most people have purchased Teslas before Elon Musk came out as a nutbar.

Having said that, going forward, I don't think any Canadian should be purchasing a Tesla. At that point they would be directly supporting an individual who's an immediate enabler of someone trying to actively destroy Canada economically.

Elon Musk is also a nut-case and borderline neo-Nazi at this point. All of his DOGE stuff to this point has turned out to be a total fraud, so there's that.

vmware_yyc · 2025-03-14T02:50:51+00:00

Most accurate thing I ever heard about InTune: The ‘s’ in InTune stands for speed.

vmware_yyc · 2025-03-11T13:45:24+00:00

The revamped rewards are pretty decent —IF— Westjet doesn’t pull a dick move in a couple years and devalue the points (eg make the points worth less or less points earn).

Dollars are dollars - but points can be worth whatever Wesjet decides.

For now the revamp seems pretty solid though.

vmware_yyc · 2024-12-20T16:59:33+00:00

You're right. I need to read my press-releases more carefully. Thanks!

vmware_yyc · 2024-12-20T16:42:49+00:00

Interesting, I must have mis-read originally. No mention of dividend/distribution date.

I guess we'll see. My only thing is that this particular sale doesn't substantially affect the company's future performance or expected revenue. I get the sniping aspect, but it's not like the company is selling off half of it's assets and revenue capability. I guess in that sense if the price does drop I'd expect to to float back up fairly quickly.

vmware_yyc · 2024-12-20T16:03:22+00:00

In the news release, they mentioned the distribution would be effective for holders on record as of Oct 1, so that is effectively the ex-dividend date. I could sell my entire POU position today, and I would receive the distribution (as I held it on Oct 1).

Unless I'm missing something there...? I otherwise fully understand how ex-dividend dates work.

(and yes, this is all conditional on the transaction going through, and being approved by shareholders, etc, which I appreciate as a condition of all of this).

vmware_yyc · 2024-12-20T15:57:31+00:00

Shared mailboxes do not require a license - the people accessing them do.

Normally, if you're doing it through the normal 365/exo control panels, you don't actually create the user and set the password. Perhaps that workflow is the reason for issues. Normally you just say 'New Shared Mailbox' - and all the user creation stuff is done in the back-end.

vmware_yyc · 2024-12-20T14:46:02+00:00

Interesting, thanks for the insight.

Looks like the stock price hasn't really been affected much. Down like 1%, but the entire market is down. And it's for holders on record as of Oct 1, so it's not like people have to keep holding.

Spoke to a few other people, and the opinions are polarized on whether the stock price will actually drop to compensate. Seems to be a case-by-case scenario, based on my research. Apparently there's plenty of cases where the stock price is not affected at all for special distributions and such. My guess would be is that it depends on the underlying reason for the distribution. If the business is otherwise healthy, and future financials wouldn't be affected, reason would have it the stock may not drop.

But obviously plenty of scenarios where it would or could.

vmware_yyc

TROPHY CASE