But in actually quantifying what I do in terms of customers and machines in order to explain to a third party who I didn't know and who didn't know me, I realized that I'm single-handedly responsible for administering over 60 different servers, not including my own personal or even my own business's servers - and that's only among my most frequent "core" customers. A couple of those customers are (internet hosting) service providers themselves, with a few hundred businesses apiece relying on them. And I also handle an average of probably ten desktop machines per server. And all the networking equipment required to keep all that stuff talking to each other. And a tremendous chunk of the general end-user support needed at the sites in question.
A tremendous chunk of the downtown areas of my city has been getting heavily torn down and reconstructed for a few years now. Several of those same customers of mine have been directly responsible for the planning, engineering, and architecture of a lot of that work. Which makes me feel like an important part of that.
Shit. I'm not saying my city would stop functioning if I tripped in front of a bus, but I'm more important than I realized I was. Go me.
(In unrelated but also gratifying news, I got carded buying an "M" rated video game tonight. It's been a kinda gratifying day.)
