> This has been discussed on SAGE-AU recently. I'm not quite sure what do > to about - try to get the message out there and reclaim the term sysadmin > or accept that it now has a narrow meaning and find another term.
I would say this is where we want to go - and what we as LOPSA members should (partly) be about-- spreading the word what a "sysadmin" is, and does. I second the opinion that a good sysadmin is well-rounded, is WELL versed in networking too, etc. But, as time marches forward, the perception of the sysadmin role by companies-- especially HR departments, is where things tend to unravel. I have seen job descriptions for systems administrators that were nowhere near what I thought those jobs should be, and I've also seen job titles of "Network Engineer" where the job description was essentially-- a sysadmin! The disconnect is fairly large, depending on the company. "Read the fine print", I guess... Lastly, to get back to the point of the $200,000 question-- Geography plays a HUGE role. I have checked up on various cost-of-living comparisons and the salaries are pretty diverse out there. I live in the Midwest, get paid what I think is a decent salary. It's not 6 figures though. But.. if I moved to San Jose for example, I'd have to get paid well over $150,000 a year just to break even, cost-of-living-wise, to what I get now. And my own personal observation, while I think it'd be cool someday to say "I earn $200,000 a year" - the types of companies that may actually pay something like that tend to be high-risk - and those companies (and jobs) are all vanishing, pretty quickly... I'll take stability over 'high pay' any day. -kcb _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lopsa.org http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
