A fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) Daejeon headquarters destroyed the government’s G-Drive cloud storage system, erasing work files saved individually by some 750,000 civil servants.
Pretty big conspiracy theory for a situation where incompetence doesn’t seem out of the ordinary.
SysAdmins saying “We need X, we need Y”, someone who signs the cheques saying “But it works fine! Why would there be a fire? We already spent so much on those UPSs”
Part of being a sysadmin is selling your initiatives to management. You can only get away with being an antisocial geek if you have solid managers above you.
I used to keep stories like this in my back pocket in case I wasn’t “making the sale”.
If SK is anything like where I live, a talented SysAdmin could make 2~3x as much in the private sector vs. working in a government job.
Sure, a SysAdmin might happen to be passionate about government. Or maybe it’s a cushy job. But it could also be that they don’t have the best of the best who may not be as successfully convincing. Or just that there isn’t enough money, and the SysAdmin had to prioritize/triage different enhancements. Or they chose UPSs, then someone else cheapened out on the brand/specs or something.
I work in state government. While I like our sysadmin and think he does a pretty good job (as much as I can tell that as a layperson), we definitely do not get the best of the best because of pay. I work in a health and human services field, though. So, sometimes we get really awesome people just because they’re caring and willing to take less to make a difference.
What you described isn’t “looks like a duck, quacks like a duck”.
This is a fire in a government (publicly-funded) location in an industry that’s often overlooked and underfunded… in a traditionally conservative country (with a Liberal leader for the last few months) that is part of a very top-down hierarchical structure. Which would suggest that the complaints of a systems administrator are likely to be ignored. And that’s assuming that the systems administrator is competent, which isn’t a guarantee in and of itself.
I’m seeing what looks like a duck, I’m hearing the quacks. The conspiracy theory is that it’s a squirrel in a duck costume that learned how to quack so people would toss it bread.
Pretty big conspiracy theory for a situation where incompetence doesn’t seem out of the ordinary.
SysAdmins saying “We need X, we need Y”, someone who signs the cheques saying “But it works fine! Why would there be a fire? We already spent so much on those UPSs”
Part of being a sysadmin is selling your initiatives to management. You can only get away with being an antisocial geek if you have solid managers above you.
I used to keep stories like this in my back pocket in case I wasn’t “making the sale”.
If SK is anything like where I live, a talented SysAdmin could make 2~3x as much in the private sector vs. working in a government job.
Sure, a SysAdmin might happen to be passionate about government. Or maybe it’s a cushy job. But it could also be that they don’t have the best of the best who may not be as successfully convincing. Or just that there isn’t enough money, and the SysAdmin had to prioritize/triage different enhancements. Or they chose UPSs, then someone else cheapened out on the brand/specs or something.
I work in state government. While I like our sysadmin and think he does a pretty good job (as much as I can tell that as a layperson), we definitely do not get the best of the best because of pay. I work in a health and human services field, though. So, sometimes we get really awesome people just because they’re caring and willing to take less to make a difference.
I don’t know a lot at this time. The cool thing is this will be discussed for years , and any who follow this will know a lot more.
I’m just saying if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck it may not be a squirrel
What you described isn’t “looks like a duck, quacks like a duck”.
This is a fire in a government (publicly-funded) location in an industry that’s often overlooked and underfunded… in a traditionally conservative country (with a Liberal leader for the last few months) that is part of a very top-down hierarchical structure. Which would suggest that the complaints of a systems administrator are likely to be ignored. And that’s assuming that the systems administrator is competent, which isn’t a guarantee in and of itself.
I’m seeing what looks like a duck, I’m hearing the quacks. The conspiracy theory is that it’s a squirrel in a duck costume that learned how to quack so people would toss it bread.
Here we have a glass of water, it’s half full.
Did someone forget to fill it up, or did someone drink it.
Is it institutional incompetence or criminal conspiracy?
I don’t think changing the analogy makes your argument stronger
I don’t have any argument, just my natural suspicion only.
But you likewise are thin on facts, your natural inclination is to see this as more a system issue.
Either we will never know , or one of us will be correct later