On System Administrator Appreciation Day we have a couple of very pressing questions for our awesome team of four. Take a look!

For the past 19 years, on the last Friday of July, the world has celebrated its unsung IT heroes, the SysAdmins. At Vivaldi, we feel that we show appreciation for our SysAdmins every day. After all, we count on them for the security of our network.

On this special day, we’d like you to meet them. Here Claudia, Hlini, Isak, and Thomas answer a couple of questions we’ve all been curious about.

What’s the best part about being a SysAdmin?

Claudia: “I’m an analytical person and I enjoy finding out why a problem occurred. Some problems can be figured out in a matter of minutes, while others may take days. But when I finally get to the bottom of it – after trying several fixes without luck, getting tired of parsing debug logs, and when I am dangerously close to wanting to give up (not that I ever do 😜) – the feeling of satisfaction when I find the root cause of the issue is the best feeling ever.”

Hlini: “Being a System Administrator is a job full of complex problems and constant challenges. Every day. This keeps me on my toes, constantly needing to do better.”

Thomas: “I enjoy designing and creating something cool and I like when I get to solve interesting and challenging problems. Working for Vivaldi lets me do both while working with great colleagues.”

Isak: “When I was a kid my handwriting was really bad, it still is but don’t tell anyone. I got permission at school to do my homework on the computer and print it out. At that time we had a 386 PC and a dot matrix printer. I quickly became fascinated by what you could do on a computer. Shortly after Windows 95 came out, we got a new PC with dial-up and my destiny was written.”

What would you have been if you hadn’t become a SysAdmin?

Hlini: “If I weren’t a System Administrator I would most likely be a writer. Stories are my second passion. I like reading and I dabble in writing. My favorite authors are Issac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and Philip K. Dick. But the stories I write are not only science fiction. They are all sorts. The human condition is a weird one and trying to describe it in a text is intriguing. Not sure if I’ll publish anytime soon though. I am too busy with my job here and I write mainly for myself at the moment.”

Claudia: “If not a SysAdmin, I would have probably been a pastry chef. It’s a job that is detail-oriented enough to make me focus and relax at the same time. I enjoy trying new recipes, but it’s not often that I make desserts from scratch. I’d love to dive into this if I have the time.”

Isak: “If not a Sys Admin I want to say something like a secret agent or an astronaut. But realistically, I’d probably be some sort of printer. I love being able to create something on the computer and see it become alive in the “real world”. At home, I have a 3d printer, a vinyl cutter, a sublimation printer and a heat-press. That has made me become the “go to” guy in my family for birthday presents… But, hey, I enjoy it 😜”

Thomas: “I was always interested in computers from a young age, so I was probably destined to go into some kind of computing field. But if I had the choice of a completely different career, it would be to sing! In my spare time, I sing in an amateur opera choir, where we perform arias and choral pieces by great composers such as Verdi, Wagner, and Mozart.”

Main photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash.