The objective is to get the computer systems that you control into a state where they run themselves. Once this state is achieved, the expert system manager will manage to look permanently busy by fiddling with a setting here, tweaking a routine there, and adjusting a gizmo somewhere else, to bring about the appearance of a computer network that needs continual support and hand holding from a competent system manager.

This provides the System Manager (or System Administrator, or 'Sysadmin') with a great deal of job security, in a similar way to air traffic control.

To be a Systems Manager, you need three things:

1. A computer network of some kind.
2. An employer not currently skilled in the advanced arts of system management.
3. An aversion to any form of hard work.

Actual technical skill is helpful, but not mandatory, because if you are taking over from a previous system manager, everything will be set up for you already. Modern computer systems are ideal for system managers because they are invariably used by people with insufficient knowledge of how to get out of the predicament that the typical system manager will create. This means that the system manager has an unparalleled opportunity to appear to the inferior people to be indispensable, which brings with it increases in status, power and, most importantly, money.

Secondary improvements in lifestyle include extra free time at work to post articles to the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy at someone else's expense.