How do you know when your workers really love their jobs? Of course, not all will, and plenty will leave over time no matter how great a working environment, but how do you know when workers really enjoy working for you? A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting the Hallertau Brewery, just north of Auckland, New Zealand, on a Saturday night. It is in New Zealand wine country, a rural area, so they close at 10:00pm on a Saturday night.

For the last year or so, my various news feeds have been filled with dire warnings about the "Rise of the Robots." Apparently, the advances in robotics - hardware and software - are now beyond relatively simple home vacuums, and are poised to become the new drivers and waiters, gardeners and barbers. Simon Wardley has argued that they even could replace higher-intellect roles, such as CEOs. Many are worried that this is an economic disaster in the making, as millions of blue-collar and possibly white-collar jobs could be at risk.

The New York City Subway used to have ads above the seats for some trade school. The general thrust was, technicians always will be in need, because things always will break. What happens when employers no longer need to manage things that break? Ever since we have had IT, we have had servers. Ever since we have had servers, we have had systems administrators, or SysAdmins. I actually started my career as a sysadmin, recruited out of engineering school to run systems for CS First Boston.