Threaten nearsourcing (we're moving your job to Lenoir, NC) or outsourcing (hey guess what, pagerboi, the DC your in is being boxed up and moved lock, stock, and two smoking PDP-10s, to Chennai)?

Overhead is not a revenue center. Some folks seem to forget this.

There's a San Francisco version of that threat: "We're moving your job north of Market Street."

You get your sysadmin to do things by (wait for it...) letting them participate in planning and in design of new products and features. Even if they stay quiet, they can listen and then know the *WHY* and not just the *WHAT* of their job. No sysadmin likes being barked commands all day. If they are aware of the goals and the needs, then you should never have fires or major catastrophes, because they are designing for that right along with you as you design your product or code up your app.

The other benefit is then you end up with a product that works better, scales farther and doesn't crash or lose data.

If your sysadmin can't handle being in that setting, get a new sysadmin.

davidu:

Best non-snark answer. Carrots, rather than sticks.

other reasons to be nice to your sysadmin:

-- he knows where the secret ftp warez depots are
-- he can point you to the latest product reg codes for above
-- he can optimize your bittorrent experience so get your fix of Heroes in an hour or in a week. what's it gonna be?
-- while your sysadmin does enjoy troubleshooting your mail server's failed RAID array at 3am, it doesn't beat a WoW instance any time

I'd like to chime in with:
* Thank the sysadmin for when things go RIGHT, not just mention something when things go wrong! I prefer a bored-looking sysadmin over one putting out fires any day, because if they're not putting out fires that means that the thing they set up worked *the first time*!

Being a Sr. System's Admin for the last 7 years, my only enjoyable experience as one was at a Fantasy Football company where I was the ONLY person who didn't know squat about sports, but they included me in meetings about sports, cracked jokes with me etc... I felt like a part of the bigger opperation and I was extremely productive there.

As a system admin the most anoying aspect is the "what did you do all day" comment..

What did I do all day? How about I kept up to date on everything going on in the technology industry so that when you get a hair brained idea about installing a wiki for the qa department I can readily have a solution in mind and up and running in a matter of hours only for it to be dismissed and never used.. only so that next week you can say "what did you do last week?". But no seriously.. perhaps we as sys admins should reverse that question.. a good system admin spends his time preparing for problems and keeping problems from happening.. so if your constantly wondering what your sys admin does all day.. then you probably have a great sys admin.. if your sys admin is running around putting fires out all day.. then he's probably not proactive enough.

I'm different then most sys admins, i'm social.. but I couldn't agree more that most sys admins are indeed like cats.

But to be honest, we enjoy being treated normally.. don't act like everytime we're doing our job that you need to feel like we're doing you a favor.. we see through that.. don't stop by my office 3 times a day to thank me for fixing something of yours.. its our job..

I also couldn't agree more.. as much as I HATE working at corp's that have "help desk" systems, they do play a huge role in our promotions, as well as justifications for current pay etc. Sys admins do about 20 different things every day, most of which are small, but still eat up 20-30 minutes a peice.. so much so that when projects are never completed we are constantly critized.. when this happens if we don't have a help desk system to refer to .. we could be out the door. I almost lost my job at a company like that.. they kept asking me what I did.. so I said how about I file a report everytime I work on something and list how long it took etc, they agreed.. after two weeks of me sending excel spread sheets to them with tons of data that made little sense to them, they eventually asked me to stop.. but my favorite part was that at the end of every spreadsheet I put a line item for how long I spent preparing the spreadsheet.

Wow that was a long post, sorry about that.. kind hit a nerve... and your indeed right.. I never wanted to be a sys admin.. and it is a cul de sac job.. I just hope some day I can become management ;)

"How do I get my sysadmin to get anything?"

I hear bananas work.

Also, from time to time, check in to see:

- What you can do differently to make their jobs easier

- How things are going in the infrastructure. It may be that you can use your influence to help them solve a problem that they (and thereby, you) have. e.g.; if you pipe up in the defense of something that they are trying to do, everyone will be better off.

- Drop by in those odd hours when they are in battle (e.g.; complex upgrade, recovery from a big problem) - bearing gifts. Food, drinks... Maybe ask them if there is anything you can do to help. Maybe they need a pair of hands to help run cable.

- Speak up in defense for them when you can. They get bad-mouthed often. Whose fault is it, really? Might be that no one budgeted for the FTE that is necessary to properly install and manage that new server or network box...

- Ask management to recognize their contributions. After all, without them, nothing works.

- Above all, be nice.

Remember System Administrators Appreciation Day! (The last Friday in July). It's the one and only day of the whole year when s/he's not responsible for your system.

More importantly, remember that no matter who hired him, pays him, or has problems with him, your sysadmin doesn't work for any of those people. Your sysadmin works for the computers. They are the ones that complain, and they are the ones that need to be treated kindly.

You do little more than relay your computer's complaints -- and you tend to translate them into the standard "my e-mail is eating the letters" instead of "I don't know how to turn off overwrite mode, even though there is a dedicated key for it."

So treat your sysadmin the same way that you treat your child's pediatrician. "It says it hurts here."