anyone here a sysadmin?

i am looking for work as a sysadmin specificly as a unix admin.

and i was interested to hear from anyone that is a sysadmin to what kind of work to expect, troubles that you come across and what skills are needed. also what skills did you come with when you started your job.

i have only two industry certifications ccna and mcse, and i'm currently training for ccnp and planning on going on to ccie after.

Well I'm not a sysadmin in the real world... But was one about 6 months ago, before I moved. (Military) But what I can tell you is this: as the new guy you tend to to the crap work. move this, rewire this... Untill you climb in the IT ranks. for non-new guys they tend to make sure everything is running without a hitch, make back ups, and make automated scripts.
I would say read the book "Unix Hints & Hacks" ISBN: 780789719270. It has lots of great techinical thing in it as well as some great stuff about being a Unix admin.

Really, REALLY, learn the backups.

i am actualy more worried about backups and databases as well.
my friend who was administering a very small network (at some really piss poor race track) needed a new raid server to backup a very old database. they gave him a single 40 gig seagate and he crashed the entire thing and quit.
now this is really something i'm afraid of, so i am looking for books on databases and backups so i can simulate these things.

My first admin job I come in to find the entire server setup(5) connected to a 10 megabit POCKET HUB. Seems the previous admin spent the entire quarter budget on a really high end desktop for herself so she could edit her web page. A million dollar database, critical backups and everything ran through that little pocket hub. And despite the fact that there was plenty of server hardware available, there was no BDC, and the backup scheme was copying 5 copies of the WINNT folder....basically she was copying the windows OS off of each server. Database hadn't been backed up in weeks. That's scary.

jeaz. i am struggling to learn as much as possible to set up a rock solid network. it's amazing how these people get jobs.

Not really....They talk a good game, people don't check as thoroughly as they should. In this case it was a kickback deal, the parent company got her husband, a trainer, and the daughter company got his wife...a....well, damned if I know what she could do. I Know my blood pressure dropped enough that my face went white when I got the breakdown of the network structure. I though, "oh shit, what have I gotten into?". I spent the next 18 hours building a BDC, changing out for a switch, revised all the backup setups, created ERD's for each NT server, backed up the database 3 separate places, and I started relaxing after that. On top of that, there was no file security set up. The lowest temp could browse the directors share. It was the worst thing I've ever seen.

On an aside, I have learned that those with no moral compunction about lying, tend to go much further, much faster. And they don't fall either. They take the credit for other peoples work, they move on, and then people find out how botched the job they did. Those of us who won't lie about what we can do, who have a strong work ethic...we get stepped on.

that is the truth.