I remember reading about SysAdmins who wrote mods for MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons, like a text-based MMO) to give them system status notifications in-game. For example, "a pigeon arrives with a note: Server 3 is down".

Plenty of jobs are intermittently high-demand and high-stakes while leaving a ton of free time throughout the day.

> He was also the main sysadmin and always got all of his work done on time.

I fail to see the problem there...

“I know a guy who slacked off in the office”, is not evidence that it’s better or worse.