Adminspotting

the T-shirt

In January 1997, Gary Barnes posted his spoof of the Trainspotting "Choose life" poster to the USENET newsgroup alt.sysadmin.recovery.

Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery
Subject: ADMINSPOTTING
Message-ID: <5cl3le$q24@infoserv.aber.ac.uk>
From: gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary Barnes)
Date: 28 Jan 1997 14:49:18 -0000
Organization: Ripoffs R Us
X-No-Archive: Yes

Choose no life. Choose sysadminning. Choose no career.        *****
Choose no family. Choose a fucking big computer, choose hard  *   *
disks the size of washing machines, old cars, CD ROM writers  * A *
and electrical coffee makers. Choose no sleep, high caffeine  * D *
and mental insurance. Choose fixed interest car loans. Choose * M *
a rented shoebox. Choose no friends. Choose black jeans and   * I *
matching combat boots. Choose a swivel chair for your office  * N *
in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose NNTP and wondering why  * S *
the fuck you're logged on on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting * P *
in that chair looking at mind-numbing, spirit-crushing web    * O *
sites, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose     * T *
rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last on some  * T *
miserable newsgroup, nothing more than an embarrassment to    * I *
the selfish, fucked up lusers Gates spawned to replace the    * N *
computer-literate.                                            * G *
Choose your future.                                           *   *
Choose sysadmining[1].                                        *****

Gaz
[1] It might fuck you up a little less than heroin[2].
[2] ObFootnote.
-- 
 /\./\   gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary "Wolf" Barnes)
( - - ) "Do not ask any lady to take wine, until you  
 \ " /   see she has finished her fish or soup."
  ~~~                - Hints on Etiquette and the Usages of Society  

We reworked the idea a bit and I produced a T-shirt for the group.

adminspotting t-shirt design

The spoof became quite famous. My original website was slashdotted on several occasions, and the shirt was sold commercially for a few years, with my royalties going to Alliance for Childhood and Mind, the mental health charity.

scan of PC Extreme article on geek wear

After the franchise agreement expired, Gaz produced new batches occasionally (notably 2015 and 2024). He had his own website at: www.adminspotting.org (Wayback Machine) Sadly, he died in 2025.


See adminspotting for a reminder that cyber-attacks can be caused by disgruntled insiders, as well as outside hackers and terrorists.

— / Ed Yourdon / "Preparing Software Engineers for the “real world”" / ACM CSEE conference, Cincinnati, 2002-02-26
at that time having opportunity to work as a sysadmin in that kind of corporation was first and foremost an honour, it was a matter of pride, you took ownership, and when you go in to fix something you don't go out until it's fixed

—Mario Pranjic / "Adminspotting - mental and technical aspects of handling mission critical production" / Elhub/Statnett Techday 2023