National System Administrator Appreciation Day is a holiday that’s observed on the last Friday in July and recognizes all of the professionals that keep organizations all over the world running the way they’re supposed to run.

This is a holiday that’s also known as Sysadmin Day or SAD and tips its hat to all of the system administrators and IT professionals that work with the complicated hardware and software that’s used by systems of all sizes.

It is a day for people to thank these professionals-regardless of whether it’s just one IT technician handling the software updates for a small office, or whether it’s a team of technicians that keep the servers of large multinational conglomerates online.

The History Of National System Administrator Appreciation Day

This holiday was invented in 2000 by Ted Kekatos. He had seen a Hewlett-Packard magazine advertisement that showed office workers thanking their system administrators with gifts of flowers just for installing a new printer for the office.

As an IT technician himself, Mr. Kekatos had already spent the previous day installing several printers for the place where he worked. He then put those two events together and created a holiday that’s been celebrated for decades.

Observing National System Administrator Appreciation Day

I think most people will understand how to observe this holiday. All they need to do is to take a few moments to give a special thanks to their system administrator. This can be something as simple as just a “thank you,” or as complicated as giving them a card, flowers, or even a fruit basket.

People can also use the hashtag #NationalSystemAdminstratorAppreciationDay on their social media accounts to give thanks to even more system administrators out there.