Redneck IT Admins

In this edition we explore the Top 11 signs that might mean you're a redneck IT administrator, redneck computer definitions and a case modification that's a blast.

June 7, 2004

19 Min Read
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Yee-Haw!SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING GOOD OL' BOYS AND GIRLS FOR THEIR SUBMISSIONS: MARK ECKERT, BRYAN GEARY, MARK JASS, GREGORY MAMAYEK, MARK MCGINNIS, STEVE PAINTNER, CHUCK PHILLIPS, HENRY ROHLFS, LOU SOLOMON, JAIME VILLARREAL AND EGEEZER. BE SURE TO TAKE A NIP OF THE FINEST TOP 11 HOOCH WITH BRAD AND TIM'S SPECIAL MOONSHINE RESERVE ONLINE.

If you didn't study computer science concurrently with moonshine 101, you may not be aware of all the technical terms at your disposal as an IT professional. As a service to our readers, we present the following list of redneck computer definitions. Special thanks to www.ahajokes.com, which provided many of these.

» Binary: What you do at the store when you're broke.

» Cat 5: The name of your fifth tractor.

» Chip: Yer cousin's uncle's mother's boyfriend's name.» Debugger: What you find in de handkerchief.

» Firewall: The side of yer house you use to test yer shotgun.

» Hacker: Uncle Leroy after 30 years of smoking.

» Internet: Where cafeteria workers put their hair.

Yee-Haw!

» Keyboard: Where you hang the keys to the John Deere.» Megahertz: How yer head feels after 17 beers.

» Network: Scoop'n up a big fish before it breaks the line.

» Online: Where to walk when taking the sobriety test.

» Packet error: When you forget to put the jug in yer lunch pail.

» Plug-compatible: When two brands of chawin' tobacco mix good together.» Serial port: A red wine that goes well with cornflakes.

» SCSI: What you call your week-old underwear.

Yee-Haw!Sure, anyone can slap a neon-colored, UV-enhanced liquid cooler inside an overclocked Pentium and call it a Geeky Case Mod. But how many of your friends can perform a mod with a pickaxe, 4-pound hand sledge, chainsaw and police-issue Remington 12-gauge? Now that's some mighty fine ventilation.

For complete instructions, see www.2cooltek.com/case001.html

Bryan Geary


11. All work stops when "Sweet Home Alabama" is played
10. Black jeans are for the days you "dress up"
9. When you set up a new PC, it plays "Dixie" when people log in
8. Your computer wallpaper is the confederate flag
7. Duct tape is a vital part of your computer room equipment
6. Your server room is in a mobile home
5. You mow your lawn and find old computer parts
4. You have at least one server named "Bubba" (you're even more likely if it's named after you)


3. Your server room security is hanging in your shotgun rack
2. Your entire staff is related by blood and marriage
1. Your fire suppression plan involves beer -

Richard Perske

You have a blade server mounted in the back window of your pickup.

Steven Bruhn

You reprogramed the bios to play the opening strain to dueling banjos instead of the normal POST beeps.

You scream "squeal like a pig" every time you insert a floppy or CD-ROM in your server. (oh, probably bad taste)


Your bloodhound has its own web site including up to date stats on critters tree'd and escape prisoners rounded up.....

All your servers are up on concrete blocks....


You purposely overwork your exchange server cause the CPU is the heat source for your still...

You had to move the server off the porch cause skeeters kept clogging up the vents.....

Nicole Pauls

Your server cabinet is held together by duct tape

Greg Shergold
You have stored or hid your hooch under a removable raised floor air conditioning vent tile in your server room.

Mark Eckert


You name all your servers with NASCAR numbers... but the #3 server is forever retired (an old P-60).

Mark Eckert

You keep a lugwrench in the server room...Victor Gehring

When overloaded shelves of old monitors collapse, 2 hunting dogs are killed.


When you finally clean up the server closet, you uncover a TRS-80 beneath piles of patch cable.

Tom Case
You climbed a water tower with a can of spray paint to defend the honour of your Linux Distro against SCO's allegations.

Tom Case


You keep all of your old retired servers out in the tall grass at the front of your office corporate headquarters rather than recycling them.

Jeff Rader

You refuse to replace old servers until you can get one in John Deere green.Jim Draughn

You mount your servers on cement blocks instead of in racks.

Henry Rohlfs

When a user refers to "12 pt. Times" it makes you think of deer season.
You paint all the servers primer gray to match your truck.


Your idea of a raised computer room floor is putting the server racks on blocks.
"W-LAN" is Midland, Texas (home of George W. Bush).
You think a "quickstart tutorial" requires jumper cables.
"Voice over IP" means yelling from the outhouse.
Your PC speakers used to belong to the local drive-in theater.
Weekend "on call" duty is ok as long as it doesn't interrupt Sunday NASCAR.
The most frequently used item in your PC toolkit is duct tape.
Security asks to see your ID badge and you show them your belt buckle.

You bring your hounds to company child care.
You think "broadband" is the Dixie Chicks.


(Yea, I kinda went overboard on this one... but hey, I'm live in Austin, TX!)

GREGORY MAMAYEK

~ the backup SVR is bolted to the bed of UR pickup
~ the SVR is named Bubba
~ the server room is a trailer
~ the server is up on blocks
~ the trailer is up on blocks


~ there's chewin' stains all over the SVR
~ the spare case is a moonshine still
~ your home page is Monster Trucks
~ you still have a daisy wheel printer cuz of Daisy Duke
~ you have more servers than you have teeth

Frank Marroquin

You may be a redneck IT Administrator if you have a gun rack mounted on your server.Kraig DeMatteis

Your figurin' the CAT5 could be wound around the sewer line hook-up to the Server Trailer.

Frank Marrouquin

You have Willie Nelson as your desktop wallpaper.

Frank Marroquin
You have deployed a policy to change all the MS Windows Logo flags to look like confederate flags.

Mike King

you have chewin' tabacco in your pocket protector
you come to the server room wearing anything camo
you actually can't be reached for two weeks in deer season


you have a wireless connection to the internet at the shooting range
you have ever shot a hard drive and had it mounted
you have a server named "Skoal"
you can rope with CAT 5 cable
you have a cell phone with built in GPS

sysadmin

you have a spit cup mounted on your server rack.Frank Marroquin

You have changed the error/Info "ding" to the "Dixie" honk from the General Lee.

Chuck Phillips

Bottle opener on server rack.
When you mow your lawn, you find an old mainframe disk drive.
Dogs like the nice cool air under the raised floor.
Gap from missing tooth is just right for stripping Cat 5 jackets.

wayne maurer
- You use the Function keys for molars
- All your computer centers contain spittoons


- Your mobile home not only has an 12 foot satellite dish but also a microwave uplink dish for high speed internet porn (of your sister)
- You use the excess heat of the servers to cook up a batch of moonshine.
- You only use IBM - In-Bred Machines cause if it's good enough for the family it's good enough for us.
- You use the CD Rom drive tray to hold your beer can.
- You've got mud flaps on your computer and a gun rack on your monitor.

Frank Marroquin

Your administrator login is "BossHog" and the password is "Cooter"

Kurt Osburn

Your administrative password is tatooed on your arm.Eric Lanyon

Your server rack also functions as your gun rack.

John R. Hoge

As you enter your cubicle the first thing you see is your bookcase " labled "Spare Parts". It is loaded with a rusted TRS-80, IBM cards (folded and mutilated), magnetic tape write rings, and a PONG training manual.

bob perrone
You nail beer cans on top of each port at the router representing each user's favorite brand so you can remember who is connected to each port.

Jimmy Newman

The ultimate complement - your website as a NASCAR sponsor.

Roger Philipps

Your servers are covered with stickers and named after NASCAR racers.Sharon Pace

You replace all your mice with new Optical Mice so that if the power goes off you can use the little red lights for flashlights.

Tom Hunt

Your Active Directory Tree, doesn't fork....

Dalton Smith
Your pick-up truck has a bumper sticker that reads "My other pick-up is Blackberry Equipped".

Terry L Douglas


Sign on the computer room door says, "If this computer room's a rock'n, don't come a knock'n."

CharleyDunn

If you mow your lawn and find 12 Gateway servers, you might be a redneck IT Admnistrator.
If you splice your CAT5 cable with an extra 5 feet of cable and wrap it with duct tape, just 'cause it would almost reach, you might be a redneck IT Administrator.


If you think Windows is just another name for Open Source, you might be a redneck IT Administrator.

Will Sommer

Your hired help thinks CISCO is a name of a horsewill sommerw


You keep look'n down the fiber links to see progress

Rick Born

You try to buy all your Routers from Home Depot.

David Bruns
Your belt buckle is bigger than your 21-inch plasma monitor

Lou Solomon

* Reuse old water cooled mainframes to make moonshine
* carcasses of old servers left in driveway

* your father and cousin do the cabling for you, and they are one in

the same person

* The server room:
has a sign saying "No SPITTING"
has a gunrack
has a bug zapper
has a screen door

* the fireproof media safe contains the "good" bourbon
* most of your computer supplies are purchased at the home depot
* your cousin sleeps in the cable closet cause his family threw him out
* your spam filter throws out all content referencing the Civil War



And to borrow/steal/revise some directly from Mr. Foxworthy:
* you've had to rake your server room
* your best network person leaves to go work at the Jiffy LubeScott Powell

You have an 802.11b directional antenna on the back of your house so you can surf the 'net while driving your farm tractor.

Scott Powell

Flannel shirts everyday, not just "casual Friday".

Scott Powell
You network not just the applicances in the house, but the ones in the yard too.

David Townsend

Your off site media storage location is your barn.

Scott Powell

You think the best way to dispose of obsolete hard disks is as skeet. Pull!Scott Powell


You couldn't respond to the server outage the other night because, heck, it was bowling night!

Mark McGinnis

You are reluctant to use the term "IP" outside the IT department.

Scott Powell
You're idea of security is Buck the hounddog in the server room.

Tim Callahan

3)You have 1 or more "vintage" desktop systems on cinderblocks in your cube - none of them run, but you'll fix 'em up someday.


2)Your server farm smells like manure


1)You have the "Deliverance" expansion pack for the Sims Online

Jaime Villarreal

You don't done think it's a big deal to discover your child process is also the parent of your other child process.

Wayne Rorex

You took the job because IT was the only job title you could spell.Egeezer

You know you're a redneck IT administrator when;


Your servers are mounted on concrete blocks.


Your WLAN uses CB radios.


Chewing tobacco is the major reason for keyboard failure.


The datacenter door is secured with "The Club".

You use Bud Lite cans for RF shielding.


Your utility power loss alarm plays Dixie.


Your muffler is wired to your truck frame with CAT 5 cable.


You use the Halon system to chill your beer.


You secure rack mounted equipment with Duct tape.
Your servers are named after NASCAR drivers.


Patching systems involves using a welder, sheet metal screws and Bondo(tm).


You don't see anything out of the ordinary in this list.jeff meadows

You use the cdrom drawer to hold your spit cup.

Chuck Walsh

1. You order brown network cable cause it looks like leather.
2. Your switch IPs end in 30.06, 30.30, and .45
3. You have machines with names like oleroy and billybob.

4. You wear a Stetson during computer room tours.
5. You call yourself the "Cisco Kid".
6. You think Yahoo should change its name to Yeehaw.
7. You like to compare your servers reliability and uptime with your Chevy pickup.
8. You name your horse "Router"
9. They keep finding empty Coors cans under the server racks.
10. You get in fist fights over who's on call during Super Bowl Sunday.
11. You set all the wall paper on the PCs you field to a picture of your bass boat.

Jeff Meadows


Your router is a Black and Decker instead of a cisco.

Jeff Meadows

You use duct tape in your server room for any reason.

Jeff Meadows

When your refrigerator snaps on, the server reboots.Jeff Meadows

Your idea of a UPS involves jumper cables and your cars battery.

Jeff Meadows

You have wireless internet access in your 1979 Ford pickup truck.

Bob Kokinda
Occasionally straddling servers- waving cowboy hat & whooping it up like Pickens in Dr. Strangelove

Graham Hand

Your physical site security includes deer hunters with shotguns.


Your UPS has a gun rack.

You really are a "bastard" operator from Hell (BOFH).

Justin Nazarenko

'Hacking' refers to what happens when you swallow your chew.

Justin Nazarenko
'Hacking' refers to yard work.

Justin Nazarenko

Your motive for burning CD's is to keep the house warm.

Justin Nazarenko

The only experience you have with rack-mounts involves a shotgun.Michael Brekke

Racks with missing doors and side panels scattered randomly through out the data center...all on cinder blocks.

Dave Baker

You bring your PDA to the tractor pull.
Three words - Merle Haggard wallpaper.
Instead of the Microsoft noise on login, you hear, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash."

Steve Paintner
You inform your staff that they shouldn't feel constrained to using only "0"s and "1"s, 'cause there's ALWAYS a place for good ol' #2!

Al Shilling

You might be a IT HiTech redneck if your server, your dog, and your PDA are all on the same kinda chain.

Rich Fondaw


If you think domain is some kinda new fancy Chinese noodles....you might be a redneck
If you've ever names any of your kids or dogs using Dot Com......you might be a redneck


If you thought a hacker was somethin' your uncle spits on the porch.....you might be a redneck


If you thought Virus Protection was pouring medicine in your computer.......you might be a redneck

If you ever thought a PICK system was what you could use to bust Bubba out of jail.....you might be a redneck.


If you ever thought the CD tray was a fancy beer holder.....you might be a redneck


If you ever thought stacking switches was gettin' ready for a lot of whippin behind the wood shed......you might be a redneck.


If you ever thought CAT 5 was a name for your cousins pet....you might be a redneck.

Dan Kwitchen

All your co-workers are related to you.Erik Dauplaise

1. Your job title is IT Administrator/Tractor Repair Technician.
2. Your computer room security consists of a nasty mule named Betsy.
3. The MCSE on your business card stands for "Manure Certified Scent Evaluator"
4. Your virus software scans livestock for Madcow.
5. Your backup generator is powered by moonshine.

6. You created a sound scheme using animal noises.
7. Your desk and chair are hay bails.

Matthew Decker

Your buddies think your coworkers are disfunctional when you tell them you work with Unix.


Your pickup truck sports a picture of a little boy whizzing on a penguin.

Ronda Morales

You have your key to the server box attached to a large piece of wood that has SERVER engraved into it and it is hanging in your cubicle.

Scott Clayton

You network the car on blocks in the front yard to the old refrigerator on the porch in your spare time.Scott Clayton

"PDA, RedBull, mullet...I ROCK!"

Gregory Driscoll

You have hulking, rusting carcasses of ancient computer equipment scattered throughout your front yard.

Russ Muller
You paint your server racks cammo.
You re-brand your Cisco switches as "Skoal Bandits."
You mount a shotgun rack atop your server rack.

You create a startup screen for your users O.S. that depicts checkered flags.
You paint a 3 on all of your black equipment.
You mount antlers on your server.
Your office chair came from the John Deere catalog.
You have an autographed picture of you and Hank Williams Jr. framed in your office.
You assume that "casual Friday" means you can wear overalls.
You put a lift kit on your server cabinet.
The nameplate on your door says "Gentlemen, start your engines" below your name.
You've written a song about how your wife left you on the same damn day your server crashed.


You list "Richard Petty and his kinfolk" as the beneficiary on your life insurance policy.
Your business card has a picture of Sparky, your blue tick hound, on it.
You keep broken-down servers on blocks on the front porch of your double-wide.
You only allow audio streaming from the Grand Old Opry's website.

George Cavenas

Your server rack has space reserved for your fishing pole and hunting rifle

Steven Barger

When you've told one of your staff to "Boot the System" as in actually kicking it.Steven Barger


If you are running OS/2 because you bought it cheap at a barn auction.

Steven Barger

'Cause you think computer support folks look mighty fine in bibbed overalls and baseball caps.

Beau Bennett
You might be a redneck IT admin if your CD tray/drive really is a beer holder.


You might be a redneck IT admin if your server rack is made of cinder blocks.

Brian Matlock

When you hear a reference to spam you think about what's for lunch.Todd Potter

You paid more for your last hunting dog than your

web server

Joe Drobnick

The cover of your server is bent and does not fit well, so you use your old belt to hold it in place.Russell Grimes:

You might be a redneck IT administrator if all of your servers are placed up on concrete blocks like the cars in your yard.

Al Johnson

No, not Daryl. You name the servers Bubba 1,2,3

David R. Poff


If your pc tower serves as your intables.

Dave Pichler

You have your old IBM System38 or DEC/VAX up on blocks in your front yard

Mark Jass

Your server racks are mobile, but your users aren't.
You think a Redhat distribution is just someone giving away free red hats.
You won't talk about IP in mixed company, as it ain't gentleman like.

Your mail notification is the General Lee's horn.
Spellcheck is turned off in your entire site.
The server room door sign prohibits "vittles, tobaccy and 'shine."
The first day of fishin' season is a company holiday.
You refuse to run Apache.
When you think of Gnome, you think of that ugly little statue your wife put in the yard.


Your users never complain about lag time. Ever.Jeff Brittain

You carry your server in a rack mounted in the back of your truck.
The administrator password is "bubba".
Your Active Directory tree does not branch.
You weld a "spit cup" on the top of the server.
You have to replace the hardware every few months due to beer being spilled into the case.
You think the BUBBA virus is a real threat to your network.


You think it's okay for 2 related child domains to be joined, cause that's what you see at home.

Carol Hammond

You have a 4 inch silver belt buckle with a picture of your rack setup on it.

Harald Mondy
You use your server to keep your Krispy Kreme donuts hot.
Your server room is littered with old servers missing missing various parts and sitting on concrete blocks.

Mike Schmalz

If you mow your lawn and find a server, you might be a redneck IT Admin.

Steven Barger

If you refer to your major OS systems as "Windars" and "Eunuchs".
If you think a root directory is something that a gopher needs.
If you have tobacco juice on your keyboard, and it matches the coffee stain on your checkered flannel shirt.Gregory Pleau

Your front yard has more than 9 non-functional computers in it.

Greg Tucker

You use the heat sink for cooking while you code.

Gregory Pleau
Your webserver has lots of child processes
Your filesystem has no branches

Jacob Jarvis

You're misunderstood as introducing the CTO as the head of the "Iced Tea" dept...


Your server cluster nodes are named after your cousins...
Bugs in the system have a good likelyhood of being squishable bugs...


You get irate at the out-of-towners who insist on saying "Lin-ucks", when every good Chris Ledoux fan knows it's "Lin-oo"...

If you start taking measurements of a surplus rack cabinent for a counter-balance fer your tractor...

You have a pair of hip-waders handy allegedly for emergency access to areas of the building without raised floors...

You overhear chitchat about SCO FUD and think someone's calling you names...
Teriyaki is not the staple of the IT dept, fried chicken is...


RC Cola is the only soda allowed displayed in the cooler, anything in a paper bag is fine...


"Casual friday" means that it's "boots-optional"...

To keep the server room clean, there's a bootjack outside the door next to a rusty folgers can...

Mark McIntosh


You find the gun rack in your pickup to be an excellent place to hang patch cables on workdays.

harold rozinski
you have uncle jed standing on the tin roof holding the antenna.

Jeff Kaloustian

You put NASCAR stickers on your servers.

You've got an old Pentium Pro server sliding around in the bed of your pickup truck.

Mie Tripp
You think that Duct tape, bailing wire and a large hammer can solve any network problem.

Joshua Jordan


Your 19" server rack is constructed from empty beer cans

Tim Seery

Your PC has bumper stickers pasted on it such as "Honk if your horny" and "Don't mess with Texas"Eric Hay

If your rack cabinet has a beer tap on the side, you might be a redneck IT Administrator.

Eric Kuzniar

might be a redneck IT admin...


If someone yells "Hoe down" at the office party and you immediately run to the server room to reboot...

If you've named each server after your wife, daughter, sister, and three cousins and you only have three servers...


If your IT security policy involves a shotgun...

If your backup generator runs off corn liqueur...Bruce Dubbink

You configure all machines with demolition derby photos as wallpaper
You put camouflage tape on your PDA so you can take it into the woods on hunting trips
You have old PC components filling all the old rusted out cars you keep in your yard

Diane Stout


You can't afford cable ties, so you have duct taped your cables together.

Kevin Motta
You place your servers on cinder blocks rather than racks.

Denver Roberts

If you go to Comdex for the "freebie toys" to give away as gifts, You might be an redneck IT Administrator

Dean Brady

You have configured your CD/DVD drives to skin an animal in under 30 seconds and then use a microwave link to make stewJohn Bogart

1. If your corporate e-mail strategy is AOL, you might be a redneck IT Administrator.


2. If you have to move computer parts to go to bed, you might be a redneck IT Administrator.


If your bookshelf consists of planks stretched between old 486 mid-tower cases, you might be a redneck IT Administrator.

4. If you have a bumper sticker on your pickup truck that reads, "My truck, probably. My wife, maybe. My PC, Never!", you might be a redneck IT Administrator.

Joe Dial

Justification for reducing staff training budget

Hilario Magallanes
"At last, validation for all the mail order IT certifications!"

David Titzer


There will be a certification test offered, but slots are going fast! Register today!

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