RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...]
Lots of great stuff posted here, including a salary schedule that, for us folks in non-profits, would be enough for me to retire right now! What happens here, especially lately, is the person who was hired so I can offload stuff like printers, FAX servers, etc., so I can concentrate on our several email servers, gets laid off, so I get to do all that stuff again. Then, the fellow who was our AD/Windows Server guru quits of his own accord, and presto, I'm the new AD/Windows Server guy. Of course, I get a whopping zero percent pay increase to go with all this increased workload. I asked management to double it, and they did. Somehow, the figure did not increase. But, at least I'm becoming more and more valuable to the company. Unless we outsource everything or go bankrupt, that is. --Larry
RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...]
I knew a guy back in about 97 or so who made about 300k a year doing random Windows consulting (he was an outside consultant for CompuWare) and he drove an Escort GT. He arrived late, left early, usually demanded to be let out of the contracts prior to their time frame termination but with full payout because he already had the final solution. Very bright guy, extremely pig-headed and a serious pain in the butt. Other than that, I can say I have known high level Ops admins making >250k, at least one very well. Keep in mind these are people that when they do things well can literally save a company millions or more a year. When they are called in for a problem with 50,60,150 thousand users or entire manufacturing plants hard down they get things corrected fast. Failure to do so and the company is losing salary as well as unnamed other things that add up very very quickly. I know this one admin who worked his normal 12 hour shift, went home, mowed his 1 acre lawn with a walk behind mower (48 inch deck), sat down with a lemonaide and was called back into work (35 mile drive one way) to work all night on combatting the "I love you" virus because it had literally ground the Fortune 5 company to a near dead halt. His scripted and executable solutions he whipped together combined with his deep knowledge of the environment had them back up and running the next morning. When he left at 10AM the next morning, he was still covered in grass clippings. You don't often get that work quality out of an Admin making 40k. If you want to pay your admins 40k, you deserve whatever it is you get. Especially if you have a list as long as my arm of all of the skills and deep knowledge that the person is supposed to have combined with a degree or two. I outright laugh at about 80% of the headhunters that contact me when I see the list of requirements and then see the salary being offered. Ops can be extremely stressful and difficult. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Pete HowardSent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 1:21 PMTo: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.orgSubject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...] You probably already know them! I dont see those kinds of numbers for fortune 50 salaried IT jobs but as a consultant its not unreasonable to bill them at $125+ per hour which would put you in the 240 range.Craig Cerino <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I wanna meat the admin making $240K AND the CTO foolish enough to pay anAdmin that money :)-Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED][mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of[EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 10:55 AMTo: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.orgSubject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...]admins earning over $240k ??!!I guess we need to define the word "admin" coz I'm not paying what Iconsider to be an admin that kinda money :)neil -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED][mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joeSent: 01 December 2005 14:52To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.orgSubject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transferWow I feel heat directed at me :o)A non-scripting admin can not survive very well if at all in a large orgunless the org is willing to spend a lot of money for extra admins tocover the overhead of wading through the GUI. Take my last ops positionas an example. Three people handling a Fortune 5 AD. Couldn't feasiblydone with the GUI. How long does it take you to enter 100 new subnets?What if you need to expire 8,000 users a day until you have expired all200,000 users?Is that real admin work or is it clerk work if you are simply clickingon something in a GUI? If I were a manager of a business, I would ratherpay a contractor or other service $10 or $15 an hour to click buttonsfor something like that than pay $40,$60,$100, $150 an hour to someonewho is supposed to keep things running.So back to the 100 subnets question. How long in Sites and Services?Hours?What are the chances of a mistake? High? Now you write a script to doit, how long? Maybe hours to write it and then seconds to minutes to runfor ever after? Chances of a mistake? Low for entry, also severelyreduced for supplied data if script has sanity checks in it? Also oncein script form it is that much easier to say put on a web site anddelegate to others to do by entering basic answers to basic questions ina form.Don't create 100 subnets in small org? What other items do you do thatare no-brainer work that could be scripted. If you didn't have thatworkload how much other work could you get done? Rarely are admins everreally doing hard admin type thinking/troubleshooting work constantlyexcept for the folks who take on escalations from lower level admins.Possibly this is different in the SBS world and there is no repetitivew
RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...]
Often this is called a consultant. $125 * 2000hr = $25. There are eight people on my team, all of us admins or engineers responsible for a very large AD, Exchange, and Sharepoint deployment. You can do the math - we're all consultants. Thanks, Brian Desmond [EMAIL PROTECTED] c - 312.731.3132 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Craig Cerino Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 11:59 AM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...] I wanna meat the admin making $240K AND the CTO foolish enough to pay an Admin that money :) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 10:55 AM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...] admins earning over $240k ??!! I guess we need to define the word "admin" coz I'm not paying what I consider to be an admin that kinda money :) neil -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joe Sent: 01 December 2005 14:52 To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer Wow I feel heat directed at me :o) A non-scripting admin can not survive very well if at all in a large org unless the org is willing to spend a lot of money for extra admins to cover the overhead of wading through the GUI. Take my last ops position as an example. Three people handling a Fortune 5 AD. Couldn't feasibly done with the GUI. How long does it take you to enter 100 new subnets? What if you need to expire 8,000 users a day until you have expired all 200,000 users? Is that real admin work or is it clerk work if you are simply clicking on something in a GUI? If I were a manager of a business, I would rather pay a contractor or other service $10 or $15 an hour to click buttons for something like that than pay $40,$60,$100, $150 an hour to someone who is supposed to keep things running. So back to the 100 subnets question. How long in Sites and Services? Hours? What are the chances of a mistake? High? Now you write a script to do it, how long? Maybe hours to write it and then seconds to minutes to run for ever after? Chances of a mistake? Low for entry, also severely reduced for supplied data if script has sanity checks in it? Also once in script form it is that much easier to say put on a web site and delegate to others to do by entering basic answers to basic questions in a form. Don't create 100 subnets in small org? What other items do you do that are no-brainer work that could be scripted. If you didn't have that workload how much other work could you get done? Rarely are admins ever really doing hard admin type thinking/troubleshooting work constantly except for the folks who take on escalations from lower level admins. Possibly this is different in the SBS world and there is no repetitive work being done that isn't better served by a script, I don't have that experience, I would expect however that there is quite a bit that could be scripted or else Susan wouldn't have the I would rather see something safe from MS than a script from someone in the backroom attitude. A saying I have used here in the past that I always used at work is that you can't be too busy cutting down trees to sharpen your axe. It applies both to training and scripting. If you are too busy to do nothing but the work in front of you, you will never see the edge of the forest as you get slower and slower at doing what you are doing. At some point you have to step back and spend some time to make yourself more informed or more efficient. The more time you spend getting more efficient, the more time you have to keep yourself informed and get even more efficient. Finally scripting requires understanding of how things are working, using the GUI doesn't. Trying to script processes forces a person to learn more about the product they are supporting and could very likely get them to learn enough that the next time they encounter a failure, they fully or at least more fully troubleshoot versus changing things in the GUI until it works. If you look at an admin making $35k a year versus one making $60k a year versus one making $80k a year versus one making $150k a year versus one making over $240k a year you are probably not looking at a raise in salary because someone knows the GUI better than the others. If you see someone who rose through those salary ranks in say 5 years, it isn't because they knew the GUI keyboard shortcuts. Understanding scripting makes you more valuable both because you can operate more efficiently and because you "tend" to have a better grasp of how things work because you are forced to learn the details which are covered by the GUI. Not only that, you can troubleshoot better because you h
RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...]
You probably already know them! I dont see those kinds of numbers for fortune 50 salaried IT jobs but as a consultant its not unreasonable to bill them at $125+ per hour which would put you in the 240 range. Craig Cerino <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I wanna meat the admin making $240K AND the CTO foolish enough to pay anAdmin that money :)-Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED][mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of[EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 10:55 AMTo: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.orgSubject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...]admins earning over $240k ??!!I guess we need to define the word "admin" coz I'm not paying what Iconsider to be an admin that kinda money :)neil -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED][mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joeSent: 01 December 2005 14:52To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.orgSubject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transferWow I feel heat directed at me :o)A non-scripting admin can not survive very well if at all in a large orgunless the org is willing to spend a lot of money for extra admins tocover the overhead of wading through the GUI. Take my last ops positionas an example. Three people handling a Fortune 5 AD. Couldn't feasiblydone with the GUI. How long does it take you to enter 100 new subnets?What if you need to expire 8,000 users a day until you have expired all200,000 users?Is that real admin work or is it clerk work if you are simply clickingon something in a GUI? If I were a manager of a business, I would ratherpay a contractor or other service $10 or $15 an hour to click buttonsfor something like that than pay $40,$60,$100, $150 an hour to someonewho is supposed to keep things running.So back to the 100 subnets question. How long in Sites and Services?Hours?What are the chances of a mistake? High? Now you write a script to doit, how long? Maybe hours to write it and then seconds to minutes to runfor ever after? Chances of a mistake? Low for entry, also severelyreduced for supplied data if script has sanity checks in it? Also oncein script form it is that much easier to say put on a web site anddelegate to others to do by entering basic answers to basic questions ina form.Don't create 100 subnets in small org? What other items do you do thatare no-brainer work that could be scripted. If you didn't have thatworkload how much other work could you get done? Rarely are admins everreally doing hard admin type thinking/troubleshooting work constantlyexcept for the folks who take on escalations from lower level admins.Possibly this is different in the SBS world and there is no repetitivework being done that isn't better served by a script, I don't have thatexperience, I would expect however that there is quite a bit that couldbe scripted or else Susan wouldn't have the I would rather see somethingsafe from MS than a script from someone in the backroom attitude. A saying I have used here in the past that I always used at work is thatyou can't be too busy cutting down trees to sharpen your axe. It appliesboth to training and scripting. If you are too busy to do nothing butthe work in front of you, you will never see the edge of the forest asyou get slower and slower at doing what you are doing. At some point youhave to step back and spend some time to make yourself more informed ormore efficient. The more time you spend getting more efficient, the moretime you have to keep yourself informed and get even more efficient. Finally scripting requires understanding of how things are working,using the GUI doesn't. Trying to script processes forces a person tolearn more about the product they are supporting and could very likelyget them to learn enough that the next time they encounter a failure,they fully or at least more fully troubleshoot versus changing things inthe GUI until it works. If you look at an admin making $35k a year versus one making $60k a yearversus one making $80k a year versus one making $150k a year versus onemaking over $240k a year you are probably not looking at a raise insalary because someone knows the GUI better than the others. If you seesomeone who rose through those salary ranks in say 5 years, it isn'tbecause they knew the GUI keyboard shortcuts. Understanding scripting makes you more valuable both because you canoperate more efficiently and because you "tend" to have a better graspof how things work because you are forced to learn the details which arecovered by the GUI. Not only that, you can troubleshoot better becauseyou have more options to you. I recently ran into an issue where someoneentered a bad value for a DL expansion server. The value was so bad theGUI didn't even display it, instead it said the DL had no expansionserver. The admin I was helping actually told me I was wrong when I saidit was set and it was in fact set incorrectly because the GUI said itwasn't set. That is kind
RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...]
I wanna meat the admin making $240K AND the CTO foolish enough to pay an Admin that money :) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 10:55 AM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...] admins earning over $240k ??!! I guess we need to define the word "admin" coz I'm not paying what I consider to be an admin that kinda money :) neil -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joe Sent: 01 December 2005 14:52 To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer Wow I feel heat directed at me :o) A non-scripting admin can not survive very well if at all in a large org unless the org is willing to spend a lot of money for extra admins to cover the overhead of wading through the GUI. Take my last ops position as an example. Three people handling a Fortune 5 AD. Couldn't feasibly done with the GUI. How long does it take you to enter 100 new subnets? What if you need to expire 8,000 users a day until you have expired all 200,000 users? Is that real admin work or is it clerk work if you are simply clicking on something in a GUI? If I were a manager of a business, I would rather pay a contractor or other service $10 or $15 an hour to click buttons for something like that than pay $40,$60,$100, $150 an hour to someone who is supposed to keep things running. So back to the 100 subnets question. How long in Sites and Services? Hours? What are the chances of a mistake? High? Now you write a script to do it, how long? Maybe hours to write it and then seconds to minutes to run for ever after? Chances of a mistake? Low for entry, also severely reduced for supplied data if script has sanity checks in it? Also once in script form it is that much easier to say put on a web site and delegate to others to do by entering basic answers to basic questions in a form. Don't create 100 subnets in small org? What other items do you do that are no-brainer work that could be scripted. If you didn't have that workload how much other work could you get done? Rarely are admins ever really doing hard admin type thinking/troubleshooting work constantly except for the folks who take on escalations from lower level admins. Possibly this is different in the SBS world and there is no repetitive work being done that isn't better served by a script, I don't have that experience, I would expect however that there is quite a bit that could be scripted or else Susan wouldn't have the I would rather see something safe from MS than a script from someone in the backroom attitude. A saying I have used here in the past that I always used at work is that you can't be too busy cutting down trees to sharpen your axe. It applies both to training and scripting. If you are too busy to do nothing but the work in front of you, you will never see the edge of the forest as you get slower and slower at doing what you are doing. At some point you have to step back and spend some time to make yourself more informed or more efficient. The more time you spend getting more efficient, the more time you have to keep yourself informed and get even more efficient. Finally scripting requires understanding of how things are working, using the GUI doesn't. Trying to script processes forces a person to learn more about the product they are supporting and could very likely get them to learn enough that the next time they encounter a failure, they fully or at least more fully troubleshoot versus changing things in the GUI until it works. If you look at an admin making $35k a year versus one making $60k a year versus one making $80k a year versus one making $150k a year versus one making over $240k a year you are probably not looking at a raise in salary because someone knows the GUI better than the others. If you see someone who rose through those salary ranks in say 5 years, it isn't because they knew the GUI keyboard shortcuts. Understanding scripting makes you more valuable both because you can operate more efficiently and because you "tend" to have a better grasp of how things work because you are forced to learn the details which are covered by the GUI. Not only that, you can troubleshoot better because you have more options to you. I recently ran into an issue where someone entered a bad value for a DL expansion server. The value was so bad the GUI didn't even display it, instead it said the DL had no expansion server. The admin I was helping actually told me I was wrong when I said it was set and it was in fact set incorrectly because the GUI said it wasn't set. That is kind of scary to me. The GUI is an interpretation of what is there. Don't trust it that much. joe -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMA
RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...]
Yeah I was going to ask who paid Sys Admins that kind of money because I'm clearly not working for the right company :) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 10:55 AM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...] admins earning over $240k ??!! I guess we need to define the word "admin" coz I'm not paying what I consider to be an admin that kinda money :) neil -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joe Sent: 01 December 2005 14:52 To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer Wow I feel heat directed at me :o) A non-scripting admin can not survive very well if at all in a large org unless the org is willing to spend a lot of money for extra admins to cover the overhead of wading through the GUI. Take my last ops position as an example. Three people handling a Fortune 5 AD. Couldn't feasibly done with the GUI. How long does it take you to enter 100 new subnets? What if you need to expire 8,000 users a day until you have expired all 200,000 users? Is that real admin work or is it clerk work if you are simply clicking on something in a GUI? If I were a manager of a business, I would rather pay a contractor or other service $10 or $15 an hour to click buttons for something like that than pay $40,$60,$100, $150 an hour to someone who is supposed to keep things running. So back to the 100 subnets question. How long in Sites and Services? Hours? What are the chances of a mistake? High? Now you write a script to do it, how long? Maybe hours to write it and then seconds to minutes to run for ever after? Chances of a mistake? Low for entry, also severely reduced for supplied data if script has sanity checks in it? Also once in script form it is that much easier to say put on a web site and delegate to others to do by entering basic answers to basic questions in a form. Don't create 100 subnets in small org? What other items do you do that are no-brainer work that could be scripted. If you didn't have that workload how much other work could you get done? Rarely are admins ever really doing hard admin type thinking/troubleshooting work constantly except for the folks who take on escalations from lower level admins. Possibly this is different in the SBS world and there is no repetitive work being done that isn't better served by a script, I don't have that experience, I would expect however that there is quite a bit that could be scripted or else Susan wouldn't have the I would rather see something safe from MS than a script from someone in the backroom attitude. A saying I have used here in the past that I always used at work is that you can't be too busy cutting down trees to sharpen your axe. It applies both to training and scripting. If you are too busy to do nothing but the work in front of you, you will never see the edge of the forest as you get slower and slower at doing what you are doing. At some point you have to step back and spend some time to make yourself more informed or more efficient. The more time you spend getting more efficient, the more time you have to keep yourself informed and get even more efficient. Finally scripting requires understanding of how things are working, using the GUI doesn't. Trying to script processes forces a person to learn more about the product they are supporting and could very likely get them to learn enough that the next time they encounter a failure, they fully or at least more fully troubleshoot versus changing things in the GUI until it works. If you look at an admin making $35k a year versus one making $60k a year versus one making $80k a year versus one making $150k a year versus one making over $240k a year you are probably not looking at a raise in salary because someone knows the GUI better than the others. If you see someone who rose through those salary ranks in say 5 years, it isn't because they knew the GUI keyboard shortcuts. Understanding scripting makes you more valuable both because you can operate more efficiently and because you "tend" to have a better grasp of how things work because you are forced to learn the details which are covered by the GUI. Not only that, you can troubleshoot better because you have more options to you. I recently ran into an issue where someone entered a bad value for a DL expansion server. The value was so bad the GUI didn't even display it, instead it said the DL had no expansion server. The admin I was helping actually told me I was wrong when I said it was set and it was in fact set incorrectly because the GUI said it wasn't set. That is kind of scary to me. The GUI is an interpretation of what is there. Don't trust it that much. joe -Original Message- F
RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer [going further OT...]
admins earning over $240k ??!! I guess we need to define the word "admin" coz I'm not paying what I consider to be an admin that kinda money :) neil -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joe Sent: 01 December 2005 14:52 To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer Wow I feel heat directed at me :o) A non-scripting admin can not survive very well if at all in a large org unless the org is willing to spend a lot of money for extra admins to cover the overhead of wading through the GUI. Take my last ops position as an example. Three people handling a Fortune 5 AD. Couldn't feasibly done with the GUI. How long does it take you to enter 100 new subnets? What if you need to expire 8,000 users a day until you have expired all 200,000 users? Is that real admin work or is it clerk work if you are simply clicking on something in a GUI? If I were a manager of a business, I would rather pay a contractor or other service $10 or $15 an hour to click buttons for something like that than pay $40,$60,$100, $150 an hour to someone who is supposed to keep things running. So back to the 100 subnets question. How long in Sites and Services? Hours? What are the chances of a mistake? High? Now you write a script to do it, how long? Maybe hours to write it and then seconds to minutes to run for ever after? Chances of a mistake? Low for entry, also severely reduced for supplied data if script has sanity checks in it? Also once in script form it is that much easier to say put on a web site and delegate to others to do by entering basic answers to basic questions in a form. Don't create 100 subnets in small org? What other items do you do that are no-brainer work that could be scripted. If you didn't have that workload how much other work could you get done? Rarely are admins ever really doing hard admin type thinking/troubleshooting work constantly except for the folks who take on escalations from lower level admins. Possibly this is different in the SBS world and there is no repetitive work being done that isn't better served by a script, I don't have that experience, I would expect however that there is quite a bit that could be scripted or else Susan wouldn't have the I would rather see something safe from MS than a script from someone in the backroom attitude. A saying I have used here in the past that I always used at work is that you can't be too busy cutting down trees to sharpen your axe. It applies both to training and scripting. If you are too busy to do nothing but the work in front of you, you will never see the edge of the forest as you get slower and slower at doing what you are doing. At some point you have to step back and spend some time to make yourself more informed or more efficient. The more time you spend getting more efficient, the more time you have to keep yourself informed and get even more efficient. Finally scripting requires understanding of how things are working, using the GUI doesn't. Trying to script processes forces a person to learn more about the product they are supporting and could very likely get them to learn enough that the next time they encounter a failure, they fully or at least more fully troubleshoot versus changing things in the GUI until it works. If you look at an admin making $35k a year versus one making $60k a year versus one making $80k a year versus one making $150k a year versus one making over $240k a year you are probably not looking at a raise in salary because someone knows the GUI better than the others. If you see someone who rose through those salary ranks in say 5 years, it isn't because they knew the GUI keyboard shortcuts. Understanding scripting makes you more valuable both because you can operate more efficiently and because you "tend" to have a better grasp of how things work because you are forced to learn the details which are covered by the GUI. Not only that, you can troubleshoot better because you have more options to you. I recently ran into an issue where someone entered a bad value for a DL expansion server. The value was so bad the GUI didn't even display it, instead it said the DL had no expansion server. The admin I was helping actually told me I was wrong when I said it was set and it was in fact set incorrectly because the GUI said it wasn't set. That is kind of scary to me. The GUI is an interpretation of what is there. Don't trust it that much. joe -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rocky Habeeb Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 5:18 PM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] FSMO role transfer Susan, "THANK YOU !!!" There are a >LOT< of people on this list that do not believe that real Admins use the GUI. Some believe that you're not a real Admin if you do. I do. I have to.
