apropos

by Tina Darmohray

Tina Darmohray, co-editor of ;login:, is a consultant on Internet firewalls and network connections and fre-quently gives tutorials on those subjects. She was a founding member of SAGE.

<tmd@usenix.org>

Group Therapy

I recently attended a meeting of BayLISA, the Silicon Valley group of system administrators that convenes monthly to enjoy a guest speaker and interact with peers. Since I don't make it to the meetings regularly anymore, the spectacle of the now-traditional opening announcements moved me much as the first meetings in the spring of 1991 had.

I'd guess that I first heard about the first BayLISA meetings through USENET news, but I can't remember for certain. I do remember that I circulated the announcement among my co-workers, and one of them humored me and took the 40-minute ride down to the evening meeting in Silicon Valley with me.

I had very specific reasons for attending that evening. At the time, I was managing the UNIX systems-administration team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and I was in an ongoing battle with the computer science department over hiring system administrators. They wanted to hire system administrators as computer associates (usually nondegreed, hourly employees), and I wanted to hire them as computer scientists (the Lab title for degreed, salaried professionals). I was continually conducting my own "salary surveys" and collecting job descriptions to back my position. I was vocal and unpopular with management for my stance on the issue, but I maintained that system administrators were professionals, and that the LLNL job classifications were archaic and broken. I felt my team members' value wasn't being recognized, and I wanted to talk about it to anyone who would listen to me.

I remember images from my first meeting vividly. The attendance wasn't huge. The group was still forming, and a good portion of the meeting was discussion among the attendees about organization, purpose, and common concerns. Most important for me, they touched my "hot button" of misclassification of system administrators in the workplace. Many of them were experiencing the same dilemma I was, and it was good therapy for me to hear I wasn't alone in my struggle. I tried to contain my excitement during the meeting, but I was perched on my soapbox preaching to my fellow admin the entire drive home. I was empowered by the access to my peers, and I was hooked.

The meetings grew in popularity. They became more structured as invited speakers were introduced. Still, the opening announcements at each meeting provided fodder for the correct-classification cause as people began to announce they had job openings for qualified system administrators, and it became clear that demand was exceeding supply. To me that represented much-needed leverage for the uphill battle against job misclassification; it's easier to negotiate when you're in the driver's seat! Later the formation of SAGE provided the necessary credibility for system-administration job descriptions so that they could be widely accepted and end the debate. The BayLISA meetings and opening announcements continue to act as entertainment and group therapy combined. So many jobs openings are announced that each one is greeted with affirming giggles from the audience. Last month's announcement from an individual seeking a job immediately launched a tongue-in-cheek hiring war from the audience, with offers of laptops, stock, and flexible work environments to seal the deal. Each additional offer brought a roar of approval from the crowd.

To the collective voice of the systems-administration community's credit, BayLISA opening announcements describe a position simply as a "SAGE Level III," and everyone knows what that means. It's clear that the power in numbers of like-minded professionals has been effective in furthering the causes of system administrators. It's provided the catalyst for change and the power to back it up. This year SAGE is updating the SAGE Job Descriptions booklet to reflect today's modern computing environment. If you have suggestions for the update, please send them to <jobs-update@usenix.org>.