Business has a weird system for assessing the value of Network Administrators. I don't, and I don't think other developers do, but management does. It seems that if everything's humming along and management doesn't have to think about their computer operations, then somehow the network administrator isn't given much thought either. Developers, on the other hand, know that when they don't have to think about their environment, that all the latest Service Packs are applied, when all of that nasty rocket science networking and Internet stuff is taken care of, the backups are getting done, email is flowing day after day, the servers are tweaked and are never down....heck, that's GOLD, baby. I LOVE my network admin! In fact, I keep an account open with Omaha Steaks just to send him a box of steaks every now and then to show my appreciation.
I'm making this post today because the company Exchange Server crashed late last night while he was performing an upgrade from W2K to W2K3. Hard drive corruption. So he's having a really bad day today and the company is without email during business hours, only the second time in the six years I've been with the company. In my experience, that type of dependable email service is rare.
So how does management assess our guy who's busting his butt getting email back online? I don't know. Hey, not having email is about as bad as it can get, so no one at HQ is having a good day either. I'd love to see them reward him for working through a crisis situation beyond his control and recognize that they didn't have to think about their email services for the last, oh, 1026 days.
For my part, I'm definitely sending him a box of steaks.