A Gallon of Premium and a box of Matches!

The collective noun for a group of  Unix Systems Administrators as every Unix Systems Administrator knows is a "Panic", the only time that you see a group of them together there is a panic on about some system or other. One of the System Admins is there with the sweat running down his furrowed fore head, while all the others standing around him are proffering useless ideas. System Admins as we know are  normally solitary animals – shunning each others company. And when all is well in the Unix Systems Administrators world, the collective noun is probably a cluster, but in a situation where something has gone wrong it’s definitively a panic.

To deal with this situation the Unix Systems administrator has evolved into a cunning creature, wearing his adaptive skin and with the ability to move effortlessly and unseen into the computer suit. We have the perfect application assassin, not seen by users as he or she flits from system running the odd Kill -9 as he goes. As we all know there are days where little if anything goes according to plan, on these days there is little satisfaction to be gained terminating user processes. On these days only the most cunning of SA’s escapes unscathed. The ones who turn up at the data center armed with a Gallon of Premium and a box of matches, ensuring that the offending machine is consumed in the ensuing accidental fire.