Bah, how do you teach a sysadmin mindset?

I do not believe this is possible. In fact, I think most of the real sysadmins are aging out, never to be replaced. They (and I will always consider myself a sysadmin no matter my job title) were created in and by a particular set of conditions that will never be replicated. Those conditions, were, specifically, access to real non-drool-optimized computers, required bouts of deep and search-engine-free troubleshooting, and using those computers to their full capabilities from a young age.

Now, nearly all of this is irrelevant or impossible.

The generations coming up behind me aren’t even 1/100 as good as I was at their age; I have to painfully lead them through every little roadblock, and even then since they have no deeper understanding they don’t recall any of it and cannot recognize very similar problems when they occur again. And since Google and search is becoming increasingly unreliable, they aren’t able to fall back on that anymore.

One of my team recently called me “Human Google.” He was not the first to do so, but I appreciate that compliment. I’m better than Google, though, because my answers are right.