Context
I know the whole environment, not just the reported symptom. That is why ongoing care beats emergency call-outs.
ABOUT
Adam Lipski. Sailman IT is me.
A systems administrator and security specialist based in Szczecin. Sailman IT is not an agency or a company — it is the name I work under. When you write to the contact address, the message reaches me directly.
Get in touchFIRST LOOKWhat I check
What I check
before I advise anything.
I do not start by asking what is missing. I start with what the company actually runs on. The answer usually says more about cost and risk than anything you could read out of a server configuration.
- Whether the software in use is still supported by its vendor
- Whether the environment still holds relics — machines on retired systems
- What runs on paper and what exists in any system at all
- Whether the company moved to cloud services and controls what it bought
- Where management can be simplified instead of adding another tool
- Whether scattered tools could be replaced by a single system
APPROACHI would rather know the environment
I would rather know the environment
than the reported symptom.
Most IT problems in small companies do not come from missing tools. They come from a missing owner. Hardware is bought by someone other than the person who configures it, licences renew themselves, and knowledge about the environment lives in the head of whoever is currently leaving.
So I work differently from a repair service called out to an outage. I learn the environment, record configurations and decisions, and when a request arrives I ask not only what broke but why it could break at all. Under ongoing care the number of tickets falls over time — and that is the right measure of this work.
Technical decisions get explained through their effect on cost, risk and daily work. If something is beyond my competence or my available hours, you hear it immediately — that is cheaper for both of us than me learning on your systems.
WHAT I OWNClear scope.
Clear scope.
Nothing left unsaid.
Three things that matter most in how I work.
Documentation
Licence records, described configurations and user guides. Everything stays with you, including after we stop working together.
Plain language
No jargon and no hiding behind terminology. You know what I am doing, what it costs and why it is done this way.
QUESTIONS ABOUT METhe things
The things
you will ask anyway.
Short answers, before you write.
Where does the name Sailman come from?
From sailing. For many years I worked with things related to sails, I hold a yacht offshore skipper licence, and I have held the sailman.eu domain for eight years. Hence the sails in the mark, the radar and the maritime language across this site — it is not a metaphor picked to suit the industry, but something I actually do.
Which systems do you work on?
Windows, Linux and macOS — I work on all of them and I have no trouble finding my way around technology I have not used before. Environments are rarely homogeneous, so attachment to a single platform is often a bigger limitation in this work than a missing certificate.
When do you advise against a purchase the client wants?
When the decision rests on opinions found online rather than experience with the product — and I know that product from work and know the alternative will be safer or simply easier to maintain. I do not block the purchase; I show what was not taken into account and the decision stays with the client.
What if I need something outside your scope?
You hear it straight away. I would rather lose the job than learn on your environment and invoice you for it. If I know someone who specialises in it, I pass on the contact instead of forcing the topic.
NEXT STEPDescribe the problem.
Describe the problem.
You get a straight answer.
No specification required. A few sentences about your company and what currently does not work is enough to start.
Go to contact