Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day, therefore I'm dedicating this entry to those who support our systems with a story about my favorite Sys Admin, Ryan.
Within just 5 weeks of being hired into the print department of a large insurance company, I found myself responsible for conducting a "Proof of Concept" or "POC" with a vendor's system, including dozens of users who were unfamiliar, as was I, with the product. The POC focused on a new web application viewer for documents in a legacy system. Enter Ryan, the Sys Admin. I was overwhelmed with responsibilities, since our Project Manager decided to take a vacation during the POC and she left me in charge on top of my normal tasks. This system was entirely new to me, but Ryan stepped in and ensured that the servers were ready and configured, working with the vendor to set things specifically for our types of documents. He was a godsend. So, while I managed users/testers, and conducted the training sessions, Ryan expertly covered my role as technical lead. These are the kinds of teams I enjoy working on. Teams that know when someone is unable to do their job, that someone automatically jumps in and runs with the ball.
Thanks to Ryan, our POC sessions were successful and we save the company millions of dollars annually, by reducing the print and paper consumption, and delivering documents electronically to all sorts of customers. At last count, we delivered over 44,000 documents daily. Someday, I'll have to figure out how many trees that saves.
Do you have a story about a great System Administrator? Please share your story with us.
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