What BASH and SSH Mean for Windows Systems Administration
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@Dashrender said:
Sure they exist, and you can certainly try to be one of them, but it's really more like winning life's lottery to be one of them.
If "being willing to move" is like "winning the lottery"
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
How many wage earning, non-managerial, IT people earn over $150k, either in London, NY, or anywhere?
More than you think. I know places paying $175K that can't get people in at all anymore because they are so far below market.
System Admin in San Fran is a $200K job and people who have worked for me have hit $300K there. NYC, $200K isn't uncommon. Chicago I've interviewed many places for $300K, and that's a cheap market. Rural Switzerland and London I've interviewed in the $300K range.
What kind of work are you doing for that? writing bash scripts all day? etc?
If you are a traditional system admin, then two things I've seen heavily...
- Troubleshooting the big problems while other people handle the day to day stuff
- And yes, scripting everything and anything to keep efficiency high
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller out of interest, how do you know how much all these people earn? I know how much my staff earn and how much by best friend earns (but only because he happened to tell me last week), but other than I don't know how much ANYONE earns.
Been a hiring manager, department manager and worked at companies with very public pay scales and some assumption that people over me made at least as much as I did (which is pretty safe that my manager who hires me is at my pay scale) and a few places have had public pay scales.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't know how much my brothers earn, I've never known how much my parents earned, I don't know how much any of my colleagues earn, I don't know how much any of my friend earn.
I know the salaries of nearly all of my friends. It's a very American thing. Not that we sit around discussing it, but many of them got jobs through me (not IT, ones in operations, sales, etc.) and many I've known since they started their careers and everyone in the US talks about pay and salary.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't know how much my brothers earn, I've never known how much my parents earned, I don't know how much any of my colleagues earn, I don't know how much any of my friend earn.
I know the salaries of nearly all of my friends. It's a very American thing. Not that we sit around discussing it, but many of them got jobs through me (not IT, ones in operations, sales, etc.) and many I've known since they started their careers and everyone in the US talks about pay and salary.
Really? Jeeze, it was almost impossible for fellow AOL employees to tell me what they made, it was strange to me, and I had the same issue at a few other companies I worked for. Maybe that's a thing with older people, and not with younger people. I noticed that is true with voting in America, older people are less likely to tell you who they voted for, as if it's a birthday wish I guess.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
It's weird to me that you know, because in the UK, at least, discussing salaries is a massive taboo. It's a big story at the moment because some of our politicians have started publishing their tax returns for the first time ever, but generally salaries are top secret.
This is one thing that I think American culture does right. The American obsession with jobs and salary is bad, but people knowing what can be earned is good. Go on Spiceworks and you'll find that when people don't know what everyone is earning, companies use that lack of knowledge to literally cut salaries in half and people think that it is fine.
I've always wondered how do people, like in the UK, figure out what they should be paid? There are no websites with reliable information. Glassdoor skews very low, for example.
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@tonyshowoff said:
It's a massive taboo with Americans as well, but you can get statical information, as well as some people do tell you, and you can infer based on those what other people likely make. And when it comes to people like me, a business owner, I can tell you what my employees make on average, and also business associates as well since we do discuss that.
I've not found that to be taboo once you get into the non-management six figure ranks. We all talk. And not just Americans but people I've worked with in Canada share that, too, and their culture skews far more to European sensibilities.
All of my friends who make really high salaries, we compare because it gives us leverage and knowledge. Companies don't want us talking salaries, but employees should be doing it, it is information that we need.
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@tonyshowoff said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't know how much my brothers earn, I've never known how much my parents earned, I don't know how much any of my colleagues earn, I don't know how much any of my friend earn.
I know the salaries of nearly all of my friends. It's a very American thing. Not that we sit around discussing it, but many of them got jobs through me (not IT, ones in operations, sales, etc.) and many I've known since they started their careers and everyone in the US talks about pay and salary.
Really? Jeeze, it was almost impossible for fellow AOL employees to tell me what they made, it was strange to me, and I had the same issue at a few other companies I worked for. Maybe that's a thing with older people, and not with younger people. I noticed that is true with voting in America, older people are less likely to tell you who they voted for, as if it's a birthday wish I guess.
Yes, I don't think that my parents shared salary info with their friends. They also didn't live in a world of changing jobs and where both of my parents worked the pay scales were public. So even though my dad didn't know that the guy in the office next to his made $75,430 a year, he knew from his title that he made between $75K and $80K. So, in a way, the old way was more public, but people didn't disclose the information personally.
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I've worked at several companies where it's against company policy to discuss salary with other employees.
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@Dashrender said:
I've worked at several companies where it's against company policy to discuss salary with other employees.
Pretty sure that's actually illegal. They can make sure that you are not to discuss it while on the clock. But stopping you from disclosing information about yourself violations your free speech and blatantly so.
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Imagine if you weren't allowed to give out your name or address, if it wasn't other employees.
What if your policy at work said that you could not tell your salary to the IRS? Makes it really obvious that that clause isn't valid, right? Businesses can't determine what you can say about yourself. They CAN block you from telling what they pay, they CAN'T block you from telling what you receive.
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One of the few things that I like about unions is that unions take salary information and make it very, very public. You might not know exactly what everyone gets, but you know very close. Unfortunately, it also makes that information useless, which is where unions are bad.
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@Dashrender said:
I've worked at several companies where it's against company policy to discuss salary with other employees.
This is how you know that they are scared that people will find out how badly they pay. It's a means of depressing wages.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I've worked at several companies where it's against company policy to discuss salary with other employees.
Pretty sure that's actually illegal. They can make sure that you are not to discuss it while on the clock. But stopping you from disclosing information about yourself violations your free speech and blatantly so.
Yes, it is absolutely illegal in the US, though a lot of employees don't know this, and it is unofficial policy at a lot of companies. People are often told not to, and it's usually implied that it's because they make more, even though it's probably because they make less.
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@tonyshowoff said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I've worked at several companies where it's against company policy to discuss salary with other employees.
Pretty sure that's actually illegal. They can make sure that you are not to discuss it while on the clock. But stopping you from disclosing information about yourself violations your free speech and blatantly so.
Yes, it is absolutely illegal in the US, though a lot of employees don't know this, and it is unofficial policy at a lot of companies. People are often told not to, and it's usually implied that it's because they make more, even though it's probably because they make less.
The thing about the US is not that employees don't have rights, they actually have a lot of rights and a lot of protections, but Americans all believe that somehow capitalism means no rights and that their own rights are a bad thing and that they don't really have any and so it is trivial to convince them of this. I've worked lots of places that tried to tell employees that their earned vacation time and other benefits were not rights but "privileges", a common American phrase used when breaking the law or violating civil rights, and violate their employment and salary rights.
I see it constantly, and lots of employees really believe that they are powerless and that things like minimum wage or earned salary aren't due to them!
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@scottalanmiller said:
@tonyshowoff said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I've worked at several companies where it's against company policy to discuss salary with other employees.
Pretty sure that's actually illegal. They can make sure that you are not to discuss it while on the clock. But stopping you from disclosing information about yourself violations your free speech and blatantly so.
Yes, it is absolutely illegal in the US, though a lot of employees don't know this, and it is unofficial policy at a lot of companies. People are often told not to, and it's usually implied that it's because they make more, even though it's probably because they make less.
The thing about the US is not that employees don't have rights, they actually have a lot of rights and a lot of protections, but Americans all believe that somehow capitalism means no rights and that their own rights are a bad thing and that they don't really have any and so it is trivial to convince them of this. I've worked lots of places that tried to tell employees that their earned vacation time and other benefits were not rights but "privileges", a common American phrase used when breaking the law or violating civil rights, and violate their employment and salary rights.
I see it constantly, and lots of employees really believe that they are powerless and that things like minimum wage or earned salary aren't due to them!
Or to other people. "Healthcare is a privilege, not a right" I think is the ultimate extreme of this same sort of mindset. The common expression is "F you, I got mine," except it's usually "F you, I don't have it either, but you don't deserve it."
I have asked a lot of older Americans who talk about "working hard means you get more" that if they had worked harder, do they believe they would've been millionaires instead of struggling on social security or still working at 65 or whatever, believe it or not, many say "yes." It's really strange. Then again, one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen (well, politically) in American politics was Marco Rubio telling people on TV "America is the land of haves and soon-to-haves," a literal mathematical impossibility.
Yet, most Americans still feel they are "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and what's interesting is they'll also talk about welfare queens, etc but if they ever take foodstamps, well they take them because they need them, everyone else is simply a freeloader.
However, if you were born a millionaire and inherited your money, most will probably praise you for working hard.
It's a strange and dangerous mindset.
I am a millionaire and I hate every other millionaire I know, except one, he's an old friend.
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@tonyshowoff said:
Or to other people. "Healthcare is a privilege, not a right" I think is the ultimate extreme of this same sort of mindset. The common expression is "F you, I got mine," except it's usually "F you, I don't have it either, but you don't deserve it."
Yes, there is a weird cultural thing where people feel that it might be unfair if someone else gets something that they might not deserve and being willing to not have it ourselves to keep others from getting it.
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@tonyshowoff said:
Yet, most Americans still feel they are "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and what's interesting is they'll also talk about welfare queens, etc but if they ever take foodstamps, well they take them because they need them, everyone else is simply a freeloader.
I've seen studies on that. Something about how America is so sold as the land of opportunity and all of the media and this goes back a hundred years or more and how people are so completely sold the idea that they will eventually be super rich and because of that they will vote to empower the rich and oppress themselves not realizing that they are voting for and heavily supporting the barriers that keep them from getting rich themselves (or you know, just getting basic healthcare.)
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Something I never talk about, but based on above I feel I should note I give away most of my money beyond the amount I think is necessary for the financial future of my family, and that's my extended family too. I also have bought property and so forth for other people and groups. This is why I do hate other millionaires, they go well beyond what they could ever possibly spend, and yet horde it.
I understand the idea of wanting more, because I still even want more money, because to me it's a way to measure success, but I don't need all of it. So, I give it to other people who, despite how hard they work, won't ever, ever, ever have even a decent income. I don't lie to myself and say "well if these Bosniak orphans work hard enough they'll be able to..." It's possible, but the odds are so against them, and most other people, I couldn't live with myself otherwise and that may be because I also grew up in poverty.
So what I'm saying is, I'm not Sting or someone like that. I think this may be the first I've even written about doing this online maybe. Certainly, I'm not going to hold others to a standard I don't live up to myself.
I think the American mindset @scottalanmiller mentioned above is a huge problem when it comes not to people helping others, I think Americans are just as generous as anyone else, but rather when it comes to helping themselves or doing what may benefit them as well as others.
Edit: Clarification, though I linked to the Islamic principles involving those two concepts, I don't limit to Islamic organisations. I also don't donate to anything which doesn't actively help people. In other words, donating to a ballet and calling it charity is silly, especially if it's an already wealthy ballet. I mostly contribute to healthcare and helping bombed out families back home.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I've worked at several companies where it's against company policy to discuss salary with other employees.
This is how you know that they are scared that people will find out how badly they pay. It's a means of depressing wages.
only against those that already work there.
Hear the following fable once a long time ago.
Guy gets a job at a newspaper, before being hired, the hiring manager asks he what he needs for a salary. Guy replies $30K and the hiring manager agrees. Serveral months goes by, Guy likes his job. A short while later Guy learns that Steve who does the same job as him (with no accounting for performance based incentives) is earning $45K. Guy goes to the hiring manager and asks why he's getting paid so much less than other people in his department?
This is where I'm going to stop - I really want to know what Scott's answer would be, and anyone else who wants to chime in.
