Paul Venezia has written three good articles in the last few days and they are really worth reading. First, he talks about the nine traits of the Veteran Unix Admin, that summarized a bunch of characteristics of seasoned Unix admins. The ninth trait led to a bigger discussion on rebooting and how Unix boxes are commonly perceived as not to be rebooted right away. Then that opened up a much bigger discussion on the simplicity of rebooting in light of virtualization. Based on that, he wrote a nice article on the decline and fall of System Administration.
All these articles are good read for budding system administrators: not only the articles, but also the comments and discussion threads on these topics. They help understand various perspectives on these classic problems and help you make a judgment call based on the specific deployment and operational scenario you are working within. Have a nice time reading!