Some general advice for young system administrators: CYA

In my freshly started little series of ‘recycled email correspondence’, here is a little piece on how you should behave in what I call a paper mill environment, meaning larger companies or bureaucratic organizations like the United Nations, for example. The advice that I give you in this little article won’t get you far in a startup company, but it will help you to survive in ‘Cubicle Land’.

During my time in the United States, my co-workers had introduced me to an acronym called CYA: (C)over (Y)our (A)ss. This means that whenever a project comes your way, you should follow the unwritten CYA guidelines to prevent your head from ending on a silver plate for the faults of someone on a higher pay grade than yours.

The relatively safe procedure in a corporate environment always goes more or less like this:

  • Clearly define and write down your business requirements.
  • Identify a budget and its size.
  • Compile the information and write a MEMO(!) to your supervisor.
  • Once he has agreed in writing or through his signature on the specifications in that memo, you can enter the next phase.
  • Compare the specified requirements with the actual feature lists of possible available products and the existing environment and resources in place at your company.
  • Write a memo with a recommendation based upon that comparison, carefully valuing pros and cons, the estimated time frame for deployment and, most importantly, the expected costs!
  • If you don’t trust your supervisor – and you never should trust a supervisor – CC or BCC your supervisor’s supervisor in your correspondence.
  • Let your supervisor make a decision in writing. An email usually is good enough for work instruction.
  • If he gives you free hand to make a decision on your own, base it only on justifiable business facts, not on any fancy ideas or delusional phantasies about the freedom of Open Source.

I cannot stretch this enough: Don’t trust your supervisor, and unless it is an emergency or daily routine, ONLY ACT UPON WRITTEN INSTRUCTIONS. Especially when there are many work hours to be burned or budget to be spent or legal issues like expensive software licensing involved. For example, if you have to purchase expensive Microsoft licenses, it never hurts to give Microsoft a call and ask them for a statement about the legal situation and the required software licenses – I do this all the time, just to be on the safe side.

And read Dilbert and take it seriously. The Dilbert cartoons by Scott Adams are closer to reality than you might think.

Still want to be an administrator? 😉



Mr Brooks

I think this is going to be my favorite DVD of the year 2008!

Kevin Costner and William Hurt are great in their roles as the two halves of the schizophrenic serial killer Mr Brooks. Now Mr Brooks is not your typical third grade wacko, he’s a loving and protecting father and husband and elected business man of the year. He does not really enjoy killing, he’s just addicted to it. He is intelligent, smart and calculates all his moves very carefully. However, one day, somebody watches him while he’s on the prowl and blackmails Mr Brooks. Not for money, no. The blackmailer wants to join Mr Brooks on his next killing.

At the same time, we have Demi Moore in her role as a cop chasing after Mr Brooks, while a killer whom she had put behind bars escapes and begins to hunt her down for revenge. And to make things a bit more fun for her, her unfaithful husband is pushing her through an ugly divorce.

Now while the police is trying to find out who the serial killer is that they have been hunting for years, Mr Brooks is making an unpleasant discovery of his own: His daughter has inherited his dark needs and desires from him, and now Mr Brooks must protect what he loves – using all his wit and ‘special’ skills.

This movie is a magnificent comeback for Mr Costner. We are not used to seeing him in such roles, but that only makes his marvelous performance even more convincing and authentic. William Hurt also excels as Mr Brooks’s imaginary – and imaginative! – sibling, and he’s perfect fun to watch.

The last time I have so much enjoyed watching a serial killer movie was when Sir Anthony Hopkins gave the performance of his life as Dr Hannibal Lecter in The silence of the lambs. But I must confess that I like Mr Brooks even better.

The movie only has a few violent and bloody scenes. It’s more concerned about the characters than the action, and that adds another well deserved point to its score in my book. It’s not a perfect movie, and it could have been a bit longer with a bit more depth here and there. But it’s very well done and definitely the kind of film that has a long life of reruns on my screen before it.