Note: I like to throw a copy of SoW on servers. It's actually not a bad little system monitor. And it looks very impressive when you want to have something on the screen for senior management to look at. Very handy when they hit you with those "probing" and "piercing" managerial-type comments such as: "Are you sure it's running?" or "Doesn't look like it does very much for something that costs five grand, does it?"

Give em candy!

Nice.  You just summed up my job in about 2 paragraphs .  I work in Operations where our primary job (according to some anyway) is to monitor and operate the 2 P-Series mainframes.  However our "workstation" looks more like NASA with 6 42" flatscreens mounted on the wall, 3 stations with 3 monitors each and 2 "consoles" which are just 2 more computers with 2 monitors each between them.  The bad part of it all is it is ALL JUST FOR SHOW!  Some intermediate manager decided to make the department look better for bigwigs and the uninitiated.  The point was to get more funding I think, but that didn't work out so well.  What did work out (for some departments at least) is that now we get more work from everyone because their stuff is important enough to need 24 hour monitoring by Operations.  We now are the key monitors for ALL network connections, server up time, mainframe operation, and UPS operations.  Oh, and we got manpower cut by 50% in 2008 and won't beef us back up as operations ramped up because "we are still accomplishing the job".  All because some one thought we needed to look important.

Life Bar or Death Bar?

Life Bar fills up with roses, rainbows and unicorns, while the Death Bar fills up with skulls & crossbones.

I was thinking a crib at one end and a tombstone at the other, displaying an estimated age at death. You'd have to fill out a quiz for it to determine when that would be and at first it would only ask you a few questions. Later versions would give better estimates based on things like gender, occupation, where you live, weight & height, diet & exercise, etc. There would be tips on demand, for increasing your life expectancy, so it wouldn't just sit there and forecast your doom. And if anything in your lifestyle changes that could prolong or shorten your life, you could retake the quiz. It will even wish you a happy birthday on the correct day.

I will probably open source it after release of the first simple version, to encourage people smarter than me to work on analyzing a bunch of statistical data and coming up with a better algorithm for it. Might be a nice project to pass off to a team of students at a university that are studying this kind of stuff. (this was mouser's suggestion)

Just out of curiosity, where would you go to study to become an actuary? 

I don't know...didn't get that far, yet.

We now are the key monitors for ALL network connections, server up time, mainframe operation, and UPS operations.  Oh, and we got manpower cut by 50% in 2008 and won't beef us back up as operations ramped up because "we are still accomplishing the job".  All because some one thought we needed to look important.

Maybe...

Sorry to hear what went down with you guys. But FWIW, if that's the way your company operates, it probably would have eventually happened without your mid-manager's riff on Epcot.

Around where I am we're seeing lots of in-house IT manpower either "being sent to HR to learn all about COBRA" or simply getting worked to death. And the only thing that attempting to discuss reality seems to accomplish is to make senior management even more anxious to will The Cloud (brass-fanfare, rumble of thunder on the soundtrack) into existence and make IT "go away" once and for all.

But even so...it's true. Your guy did seem to go way over the top. Maybe if he just did one big screen and two PCs...???

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Just out of curiosity, where would you go to study to become an actuary? 

I almost went into this.  I don't know if a specific actuary degree is offered in most universities.  In my opinion, I'd get a Statistics degree and mix in some finance/accounting courses.  Wouldn't that be just as good if not better?  What else do you need to know to be an actuary?  I always thought if you were good with statistics, you can do actuarial work fairly easily.

Haha, good one.  Yeah, i don't really know specifically.  I have not kept up with academia much in the past few years.  I was speaking more practically than anything else.  I'll put it this way, if I were to do it, I'd focus on taking as few formal classes as necessary.  So first I'd check to see what the actuary jobs require as far as degrees and certificates.  I'd get the bare minimum.  Then, to really become an expert, I'd self-study using recommended books, and, ideally, I'd find a good mentor I can talk to regularly.
I know there are several sequential exams or certificates you have to get to become a real actuary, so I would really focus on getting those as soon as possible.  That way, i can get employed as soon as possible, and that's the hardest part.  Once you are employed, the rest of it will develop a little more naturally.