Computer Monitoring

I was at a family party this weekend and was talking with my brother-in-law. He was asking about one of my job functions which amounts to watching a number of computer servers to make sure they are running smoothly. This is one of those paradoxes that can be found throughout the working world. If I am doing my job correctly, I should be sitting around with nothing to do. If I do it wrong, then I am always busy and look productive.

To help illustrate the point, I used a boat analogy. Something going wrong is like getting a hole in the boat. If I do a good job with the repair, then I shouldn't have to constantly check for leaks. If I do a poor job, then I have to spend my time watching the patch and pumping out water.

This makes it very difficult for management to reward good behavior. Management doesn't like to pay for an employee to sit around all day playing video games. However it is much worse for that employee to constantly be working on trouble issues that never really get resolved. Good management understands that stable computer systems are the desired goal and rewards this behavior accordingly. That must explain why the number of things on my plate continues to grow. Now how am I ever going to finish my video game?