Internet Explorer 8

[SCCutler]

Y'all are probably right- actually, in most respects, I *know* you're right, but you always have those few people who are too good to just throw out (and if you've tried to hire, you know what I mean), but whose bad habits feel like disaster waiting to happen. Always a challenge.

Shopping is not really an issue. These days, my principal concerns are social networking sites (because of the remarkable amount of time they can waste) and game-playing sites.

Edit:

I agree - Jesse is the type of CIO I'd want, too, but by the time I can afford him, I won't be able to afford him. If you know what I mean.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

This is probably more common in larger organizations.

Oh absolutely. And for a very good reason... I'll explain.

This is something that has bothered me for a long time not just with IT but with everything having to do with rules, laws and policies. Maybe that's what it takes to prevent the really ignorant people from hurting someone but it makes me crazy. I think about all the cities around the country that are passing law against using a cell phone while driving. As a pilot I am capable of prioritizing my responsibilites, 1) fly the airplane 2) navigate 3) communicate. I think of not being able to use a cell phone while driving tantamount to stopping the airplane before talking to ATC or maybe a policeman pulling over to the side of the road during a pursuit when he needs to use the radio. But, the fact of the matter is that there are people driving cars that are unable to walk and chew gun at the same time. If it comes down to putting up with the nuisance of not using my cell phone while driving because a city is trying to protect it's citizens from those who clearly cannot drive safely and use a cell phone, well I can live with that.

IT departments should not be ivory towers, they should not be cut off from the users they support and they should not be the final say in policy making. An IT department is there to support it's customers, who are the users and the company as a whole. Policy should be decided by the entire management team not a single group. Once the policy is established then it is up to the people who administer that policy to do exactly that. If draconian policies are being put in place by the IT group alone then there is something fundamentally wrong with the structure of the company as a whole.

I pretty much agree on all counts, but the portion I highlighted there pretty much sums it up. If a business unit's needs aren't being met by IT or -- worse -- their business is being hindered by overly restrictive policies or security measures, the onus is on them to communicate that, at which point it becomes IT's responsibility to accommodate them. If that communication doesn't happen, something is very, very broken, well beyond anything just in IT. And if the decision is made by senior management that their complaints aren't to be addressed, well, them's the breaks. Either way, I fail to see how the failure of business unit managers to get their employees the resources they need is somehow IT's fault.

But going back to the "lowest common denominator" thing being more common in larger organizations: When you think about it, as an organization grows, a much more insignificant employee has a much greater ability to inflict much greater damage. If one employee of a 10-person firm takes down the company's network by running some malicious app, you've got a fairly significant resource (1/10th of the organization), disrupting the operations of a comparatively smaller group of resources (9 other people, or 90%.) Now scale the enterprise up to 10,000: Now a single employee, a minuscule resource (1/10,000th of the organization) can disrupt the operations of a comparatively larger group of resources (9,999 other people, or 99.99%.) Put another way, the potential threat a single employee presents in a large enterprise is significantly larger than the potential threat a single employee presents in a small one. As such, as organizations grow, their security and management policies have to get more restrictive and have to get more centralized. To not do so is negligent to the point of being reckless.

It should also be noted that IT support people can often times be overwhelmed by what they envision as the complete stupidity of the users they are dealing with. Often times these people just can't understand how someone can be so dumb. The fact is that they are unable to relate to someone who does not have the same level of technical knowledge that they do and they become frustrated. Maybe these personality types should be in a job where they don't deal with people. Maybe IT isn't a good fit for them in spite of their technical ability.

Very, very true. But that wasn't exactly the case with me... When I was doing user support, I was always happy to help people out; there aren't very many ways in which somebody can have a significantly and directly positive impact on another person's day than to fix something for them that they don't know how to fix. What got to me was when the self-proclaimed experts would call or visit and cop an attitude. "Um, you are the one who needs help from me, and you're gonna be a $#%@!^ about it? Nuh-uh." That got real old, real fast so I learned other stuff.

The bottom line is that all policies and procedures should be in place for one thing, to meet the business needs of the company. Anything that interferes with that should be questioned. All too often it's not questioned by the right people if you get my meaning.

Jean

Absolutely. One of the biggest problems, IMO, are all the self-proclaimed experts trying to call the shots from the cheap seats. The way I see it? I'll start taking detailed technical advice about my job from a Bean Counter/Marketing D-bag/Sales Guy/Executive Honcho Big Deal when the Bean Counter/Marketing D-bag/Sales Guy/Executive Honcho Big Deal starts taking detailed technical advice about their job from me. In the meantime, I'll be more than happy to help them do their job if they help me do mine by just clearly communicating their needs (is that really so much to ask?) and not trying to do my job for me.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

Y'all are probably right- actually, in most respects, I *know* you're right, but you always have those few people who are too good to just throw out (and if you've tried to hire, you know what I mean), but whose bad habits feel like disaster waiting to happen. Always a challenge.

That's why you folks who gotta make those calls get paid the big bucks, right?

 

[gprellwitz]

Shopping is not really an issue. These days, my principal concerns are social networking sites (because of the remarkable amount of time they can waste) and game-playing sites.

and PoA

 

[Maverick]

By the way, getting back to the title of this thread, we are not using IE 8 at work. There are B2B sites our people use on a daily basis that are not compatible with IE 8 and won't be for some time. In this case I'm glad that for once they gave us that warning. In many cases we have to find out the hard way.

My preference is Firefox with the NoScript add-on.

Jean

 

[Ghery]

Wow, this really got hot. Reading various posts on policies at various companies really makes me appreciate our IT group. The last time I had a disagreement with them on a policy was around 13 years ago, and I prevailed. New machines, user access. Couldn't even re-set the clock from the UI (Windows). No problem, re-boot and re-set it from the BIOS set-up menu. Called IT, told them this was silly. They asked why I would want to reset the clock on the PC. It was set to EST and we were in PST and I wanted the time stamps on my files to be correct. And, come watch me change it! They did. I asked them if they knew who designed those PCs. It was the group I worked in. I'm not aware of anyone in Intel who doesn't have administrator privileges on their PC. And I'm not aware of major issues because of it. If I need to load a new application on my laptop, I do it. And VPN works great when I'm not in the office. IE8? When IT decides to go to it. No biggie.

Porn? We have a company policy against such stuff. Up to and including termination of employment if caught. A pretty good incentive to me. I don't want to lose my job, and having to explain that reason to my wife would be even more uncomfortable than having to look for a new job.

Now, don't get me started on the IT department at the school district where she teaches. I'm ready to nuke those idiots.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

Wow, this really got hot. Reading various posts on policies at various companies really makes me appreciate our IT group. The last time I had a disagreement with them on a policy was around 13 years ago, and I prevailed. New machines, user access. Couldn't even re-set the clock from the UI (Windows). No problem, re-boot and re-set it from the BIOS set-up menu. Called IT, told them this was silly. They asked why I would want to reset the clock on the PC. It was set to EST and we were in PST and I wanted the time stamps on my files to be correct. And, come watch me change it! They did. I asked them if they knew who designed those PCs. It was the group I worked in. I'm not aware of anyone in Intel who doesn't have administrator privileges on their PC. And I'm not aware of major issues because of it. If I need to load a new application on my laptop, I do it. And VPN works great when I'm not in the office. IE8? When IT decides to go to it. No biggie.

Sounds like they've got it pretty well figured out -- for your organization's needs. And that's likely the result of a good amount of healthy, productive, professional cooperation between the users, the IT folks, and each of their management structures. That's the way it's supposed to go: "Hey, this ain't working." "Okay, let's the both of us get together and figure out how to fix it."

Porn? We have a company policy against such stuff. Up to and including termination of employment if caught. A pretty good incentive to me. I don't want to lose my job, and having to explain that reason to my wife would be even more uncomfortable than having to look for a new job.

I once worked nearby a guy who got busted and axed for looking at teh pr0n. It was... Uncomfortable.

Now, don't get me started on the IT department at the school district where she teaches. I'm ready to nuke those idiots.

Like I said above, one of the (few, I suppose) things I liked about doing user support was being able to have a directly positive effect on people's work, a somewhat unique trait of doing that kind of work. But the opposite is true too: A lousy IT operation -- regardless of what causes its lousiness -- is a huge morale killer.

 

[ScottM]

It wasn't my call or my decision, nor my policy. Get off it. This isn't another "Should we have a private forum" Scott, there's no need to twist facts.

Let your employees look at porn - afterall, there's no point in blocking them

Nick your words were that the site was blocked as being sexually explicit per your filter. You defended that position. no where did you come to the rational conclusion that you Internet filter sucks. It is per your own description as on on for everything or nothing type of filter. No exceptions.

I have to say your response should an incredible lack of independent cognition in solving your customers issue. Any reasonable person would have concluded that the site in question was NOT porn, should NOT have been filtered in the first place, and that the user had a reasonable gripe. Instead you took the TSA screener route and supported the bad policy without question, blaming the user for their own problems, and thinking what a great job you were doing. That is EXACTLY why the users get so annoyed with IT.

 

[SCCutler]

and PoA

Too close to true!

I have my own surfing habits in check these days, but for a while, was not so certain, and I ended up blocking Airliners.net (at which site I used to spend a great deal of time).

 

[wsuffa]

Well I'm sure the best way to combat that is with the ivory-tower attitude of "full-of-themselves users who think they need admin rights, no filtering controls, and no release management or configuration management in order to read and write PDFs and create their Holiest of Holy PowerPoint presentations."

Hmm... Let's see where this one goes, shall we?



And I'm sure she just manufactured that idea out of thin air, from the clear blue sky, for no reason whatsoever. Because, you know, that's what the geeks in IT do: They like to prevent technology from being used. And what's more, there's nooooo cost associated with supporting those laptops whatsoever. Not a penny. Nope... All the Superhuman PDF Readers, Excel Chart Makers, and PowerPointers out there, they never waste anything when they're given more resources than they need. Never.



Oh, my, there are twenty-five page contracts involved? Well, then, why yes, bring them laptops! Laptops for one and all, across the land!

And while they're at it your GPOs should all be removed and you should be given local admin rights too, right away. Probably need patching disabled and the corporate firewall blown open too, so you can get that word processing taken care of. Forget "security." Forget "manageability." Forget "standardization." Forget... um... what's the word... oh, yeah, forget "COST." The Almighty User has WORD DOCUMENTS they must be free to edit (and lose, without backup!) unfettered!



So you've had the great fortune and unique experience of stumbling upon a specifically dumb corporate policy crafted, implemented, and managed by clearly misguided or incompetent people. Shall I call the engraver now to start work on a congratulatory plaque?



Well, since it's a $400 million deal you're working on (just like the last 10 people who called the helpdesk who knew the tech's job better than them), then not only should the policy be "Laptops! Laptops for all the people, and a color laser printer in every cubicle, cost be damned!" Clearly given that -- not to mention the extraordinary technical complexity of the PDFs, Excel, and PowerPoint you work with -- you should also have the best support available. Only MIT grads and the like. And, since you're all so pleasant to work with, they should all be paid at least $75,000 a year to keep them around and happy, too -- and you'll be more than happy to shoulder the cost of that service. Because what you're all really looking for is a partnership in success, right? You want to really work with the IT people to improve your situation, as evidenced by the fact that I'm sure you professionally and responsibly voiced, in the proper channels, the shortcomings in the services as you saw them, instead of just whining and complaining -- and impugning the virtue of an entire professional discipline -- thereby creating an unnecessarily adversarial relationsh... Hmm... Oh.



And again, I'm sure you properly and effectively communicated to management the shortcomings in that policy so that you never had to do it again. Right?



Oh I see. If their managers aren't getting their developers the resources they need, it's IT's fault. Of course. Makes perfect sense.



Again, I'm glad you've decided to take what's a (apparently, based on the hearsay you're providing) single, individual, anecdotal bit of bad tech-work and use that to call into question the validity of an entire professional function. Because that's usually the best way to fix those kinds of inefficiencies.



Perhaps if business units demonstrated any interest whatsoever in communicating their needs and working with the people who actually have the skills and knowledge to get them the resources they need while "MANAGING" risk at the same time rather than working against them, slashing their budgets and -- oh yeah -- incessantly casting them as brain-dead hurdles to be jumped rather than skilled professionals to be worked with, maybe -- MAYBE -- they'd be more effective at crafting security and administrative policies and systems that make sense and aren't unnecessarily onerous. Just maybe. And yeah, "that's the typical ivory-tower attitude I run into with folks I call 'full-of-themselves IT management'" when approaching every conversation about centralized management and administration is exactly how to get that particular ball rolling.

And to think that we were talking about being productive here.



If a $400 million deal is "missed or blown up" because "security measures prevented" some Excel Jockey or PowerPoint Whiz "from completing the work", that particular "someone" didn't know what the hell they were doing with the technology resources they were given in the first place -- or they're simply looking for a scapegoat. They probably should've talked to and worked with the people who do know what they hell to do with the technology resources they were given before some mysterious "blow up" happened.



Right. Because network outages are caused by "stupid policy", for one thing.

But in a perfect world, it'd be everybody: The IT people who didn't effectively serve their constituents' needs, and the users who didn't effectively convey what their needs were. Because the blame is never on just one side.

But guess who's gonna get their budget cut?



This is exactly why lots of tech people -- this one included -- get the hell out of supporting users at the first opportunity. Virtually every user is a victim of their own greatness, burdened by "deadlines", slammed with the pressure of the "Four Hundred Million Dollar Deal™" (and boy, lemme tell ya, there sure seem to be a lot of those...), and enraged by the knowledge that they know how to do every job better than the people already doing them. I mean it's such an attractive offer: "Hey buddy, how about you provide me with some IT support! I'm gonna complain when you do protect me from the risks I need to be protected from, blame you when you don't protect me from the threats I told you not to protect me from, blame you for pretty much every problem I have even if it's of my own creation, will refuse to be a constructive partner in crafting policies and solutions that make sense and instead will just incessantly whine, will expect to have everything I want (even if it's well beyond what I need) and pay nothing for it, and will do everything I can to work against your success as a group. In return, I'm going to pay you a pittance, and hold over you the threat of sending your job to a country in which last week the people were getting paid 17 cents a year to manufacture soccer ball parts, make your group the first to take budget and staff cuts, imply that you're a dolt whose job could be done better by me and other people who don't have the first clue what your job really entails, and generally just treat you like ****. And oh by the way, if you dare question my edicts from on high about how I know how to do your job better than you do or if you have the audacity to act for just a moment like the subject matter expert I expect you to be, I'm going to consider you to have the typical ivory-tower attitude I run into with folks I call 'full-of-themselves IT management.' Whattaya say? Sounds pretty great, if you ask me!"

But yeah. It's the IT people who are in "the tower". Riiiiiiiiiight.

And you have just demonstrated the attitude that causes users and management to lose respect for IT. IT should not be running the business - the business needs should drive IT.

Our organization is looking to outsource IT to a group that will be responsive to (and not fight) management. Can't come soon enough.

 

[ScottM]

Our organization is looking to outsource IT to a group that will be responsive to (and not fight) management. Can't come soon enough.

Please, PLEASE stay away from CSC.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

And you have just demonstrated the attitude that causes users and management to lose respect for IT. IT should not be running the business - the business needs should drive IT.

Our organization is looking to outsource IT to a group that will be responsive to (and not fight) management. Can't come soon enough.

Look, first of all, it's pretty simple, and it cuts one of two ways:

• If on the one hand, business management decides to work with their IT provider -- whoever it is, internal or external -- effectively communicates their needs, pays for the service they expect, and understands the stone-simple reality that they share mutual interests, they're very likely to get service they're very happy with if their IT provider is the least bit competent.
• If, on the other hand, management is of the view that their responsibility starts with wanting everything for free and ends with crying like spoiled little children when they don't get what they want, they're probably not going to wind up very happy no matter how good or bad the IT staff is.

Secondly, if IT is "fighting" management and winning, uh, guess what? The problem almost certainly ain't with IT -- if there even is a problem. Because unless the little arrows on the org chart go from IT Manager/CIO, up to God Himself, and then down to CEO/President, there's no excuse for that. None -- if that's even really what's happening.

Thirdly, if you think those kinds of problems -- the blame for which is at least shared by business managment -- are going to get better after outsourcing... um... Best of luck.

Edit: Oh, and...

In return, I'm going to pay you a pittance, and hold over you the threat of sending your job to a country in which last week the people were getting paid 17 cents a year to manufacture soccer ball parts, make your group the first to take budget and staff cuts, imply that you're a dolt whose job could be done better by me and other people who don't have the first clue what your job really entails, and generally just treat you like ****.

Our organization is looking to outsource IT to a group that will be responsive to (and not fight) management. Can't come soon enough.

Q.E.D.

 

[Pi1otguy]

Please, PLEASE stay away from CSC.

What's the deal with CSC? They seem to have a few big contracts so can it be that bad?

 

[ScottM]

What's the deal with CSC? They seem to have a few big contracts so can it be that bad?

Yes it is that bad. You gets what you pay for, the TSA of IT.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

You gets what you pay for

Which is true of IT service universally... Internal, external, domestic, offshore, doesn't matter. You gets what you pay for -- and manage effectively.

 

[SkyHog]

Nick your words were that the site was blocked as being sexually explicit per your filter. You defended that position. no where did you come to the rational conclusion that you Internet filter sucks. It is per your own description as on on for everything or nothing type of filter. No exceptions.

I have to say your response should an incredible lack of independent cognition in solving your customers issue. Any reasonable person would have concluded that the site in question was NOT porn, should NOT have been filtered in the first place, and that the user had a reasonable gripe. Instead you took the TSA screener route and supported the bad policy without question, blaming the user for their own problems, and thinking what a great job you were doing. That is EXACTLY why the users get so annoyed with IT.

First off, its neither my filter, nor my decision what is filtered. I write software in the same office as the people that administer it (as I've explained in this thread a few times).

That said, regardless of whether the person had a legit gripe (which I admitted she did), it is inappropriate for someone to enter a ticket with masked vulgarity, and that was my point. Of course that site was excepted from the block.

My point is that our IT department is too small to deal with the issues that have come about from people surfing sites they shouldn't. Its not a one size fits all scenario. In our case we have to make due with being shorthanded, and that means to err on the side of blocking.

 

[SkyHog]

Also, I should point out - management drives IT's decisions here. Management almost took away this company's internet completely. Our existence is the only reason people have SOME internet at all.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

Also, I should point out - management drives IT's decisions here.

Which is the way it's supposed to be and the way I'm sure it really is in just about every case. And which is why it's clearly absurd to blame all of every single problem exclusively on IT.

 

[mikea]

The problem Slappy is you guys ASSume you know what EVERYBODY needs based on the calls you get from the users on the left side of the curve. The rest of us aren't calling, except when you SMS push out the Flash update and remove the rights to install it.

It's a mind-boggly huge comnay almost as big as th3 world isself. You have to be a special kind of arrogant to ASSume you can make the rules controlling what all of those NEED perns to do.

This one BTW had your job years ago and then had to deal with fools and wished I could stop them but would never have allowed what we have now. I have none of the monitoring and filtering and scanning apps on my personal POCs and somehow they remain uninfected.

Vis: "If you live within 400 miles you must drive your personal car." So now we all have to have personal cars as a job requirement. How do you get to work, Slap?

BTW, you got there by locking down anybody running anything but Windows and Office and then "all computers have to face these threats" so of course "all computers" have to have 2GHz of CPU power and 1.5GB of RAM being used to scan, cram, watch, disable, disallow, disconnect, filter, report STOP BLOCK....

 

[ReverendSlappy]

The problem Slappy is you guys ASSume you know what EVERYBODY needs based on the calls you get from the users on the left side of the curve. The rest of us aren't calling, except when you SMS push out the Flash update and remove the rights to install it.

It's a mind-boggly huge comnay almost as big as th3 world isself. You have to be a special kind of arrogant to ASSume you can make the rules controlling what all of those NEED perns to do.

Horse****.

The problem -- if there is one -- is that we don't "ASSume" anything. What we expect is to have users communicate what exactly it is that you "NEED" and whether or not those "NEEDs" are being met -- and we expect that to be communicated in an effective, professional manner via the proper channels.

Further, we expect to be given the resources required to meet those expectations.

Again, this is stone simple. If your tech needs are consistently not being met it's for one of a few reasons:
1) You're not effectively communicating -- and escalating where necessary -- the problems you're experiencing.
2) Your management isn't effectively communicating their business's needs.
3) Somebody senior to you has decided your supposed "problem" isn't as important as you think it is. Tough taco.
4) Everybody senior to you has decided your problems are, in fact, important, and effectively and appropriately communicated your and your business's needs to IT but hasn't given IT the resources required to get you what you need.
5) IT isn't doing their job.

Even if it gets ALL THE WAY to #5 -- and what percentage, exactly of issues do you think actually do? Because I've been involved in quantitatively measuring exactly that -- it's not as though IT is some alien being, completely foreign to the management structure of your organization. If it gets all the way to #5 and the people at the top of your organization don't make changes, then guess who's fault it is?

This one BTW had your job years ago and then had to deal with fools and wished I could stop them but would never have allowed what we have now. I have none of the monitoring and filtering and scanning apps on my personal POCs and somehow they remain uninfected.

Good for you. But since you did have that job (which, as I've mentioned, is no longer mine) then you understand what a ridiculously puerile argument it is to say, "Well, I -- this one single user -- can handle it just fine! Any kind of enterprise-wide restriction is totally bogus, no matter how big the organization is!" Right? Because it is.

Vis: "If you live within 400 miles you must drive your personal car." So now we all have to have personal cars as a job requirement. How do you get to work, Slap?

What the hell does that have to do with anything even remotely IT?

BTW, you got there by locking down anybody running anything but Windows and Office and then "all computers have to face these threats" so of course "all computers" have to have 2GHz of CPU power and 1.5GB of RAM being used to scan, cram, watch, disable, disallow, disconnect, filter, report STOP BLOCK....

Uh, yeah. Because every management group I've worked for has correctly realized that there isn't another OS anywhere near as appropriate for the enterprise than Windows. Any group that hasn't isn't worth working for.

 

[ScottM]

Horse****.

The problem -- if there is one -- is that we don't "ASSume" anything. What we expect is to have users communicate what exactly it is that you "NEED" and whether or not those "NEEDs" are being met -- and we expect that to be communicated in an effective, professional manner via the proper channels..

I need a reliable network connection, a remote port and an email server. The only other thing I need from IT is to be left the F-alone to decide what software and platform works best for my needs.

Now, other departments may have different needs. Let them work with IT to figures those out for that case. This is the way it used to be when we had a decentralized IT that reported to the biz heads. Now it is all contracted through the CIO who has no report to anyone but the CEO .

 

[ScottM]

The problem Slappy is you guys ASSume you know what EVERYBODY needs based on the calls you get from the users on the left side of the curve. The rest of us aren't calling, except when you SMS push out the Flash update and remove the rights to install it.

It's a mind-boggly huge comnay almost as big as th3 world isself. You have to be a special kind of arrogant to ASSume you can make the rules controlling what all of those NEED perns to do.

This one BTW had your job years ago and then had to deal with fools and wished I could stop them but would never have allowed what we have now. I have none of the monitoring and filtering and scanning apps on my personal POCs and somehow they remain uninfected.

Vis: "If you live within 400 miles you must drive your personal car." So now we all have to have personal cars as a job requirement. How do you get to work, Slap?

BTW, you got there by locking down anybody running anything but Windows and Office and then "all computers have to face these threats" so of course "all computers" have to have 2GHz of CPU power and 1.5GB of RAM being used to scan, cram, watch, disable, disallow, disconnect, filter, report STOP BLOCK....

+1E1000000000!!!

Don't you love SMS pushes that cannot be stopped. IT picks 2am thinking that is a good time as everyone in Montreal (where our IT is actually at) is asleep. Problem is that we are a global company and at 2am I am trying to work remotely from Asia and it is the middle of the flappin' day. Am I offered a choice to delay the install? NNNOOOOOoooooo!!! This is a monthly security update that must be complied with and not delayed by a second or the whole network will come crashing down.

The irony of the discussion is making me really laugh. It is not just Matt that I am saying this about. But these same guys that are so pro-IT policy are the same guys who argue to the death in the SZ about zero tolerance, one size fit all policies in our laws and regulations being so wrong. The only thing that has changed is that in this case they are the ones charged with supporting the policies and regulations.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

I need a reliable network connection, a remote port and an email server. The only other thing I need from IT is to be left the F-alone to decide what software and platform works best for my needs.

Now, other departments may have different needs. Let them work with IT to figures those out for that case. This is the way it used to be when we had a decentralized IT that reported to the biz heads. Now it is all contracted through the CIO who has no report to anyone but the CEO .

And if your needs aren't being met by the CIO's organization, and that problem has been communicated to the CIO's organization and/or escalated to the CIO and/or escalated to the CEO, and the problem hasn't been fixed, who exactly is to blame for that?


(Hint: If the letters "I" or "T" are in your answer, you're wrong.)

 

[ScottM]

And if your needs aren't being met by the CIO's organization, and that problem has been communicated to the CIO's organization and/or escalated to the CIO and/or escalated to the CEO, and the problem hasn't been fixed, who exactly is to blame for that?


(Hint: If the letters "I" or "T" are in your answer, you're wrong.)

The CIO who says that she is charged with the protection of the network and cannot risk any deviation from policy because of potential losses to information and productivity. She sounds like the head of the TSA to me.

CIO's put up metrics on how they protected the network, reduced outages, handled trouble tickets, blah, bl;ah, blah. That is what they are measured on. Never on did they improve productivity or make their customers happy.

A few years ago the IT department was rated a 30 out of 100 on internal customer satisfaction survey. Sounds awful ?? The CIO spun it and showed how it had improved from 28% the previous year. Therefore they are on the right track. [/FACEPALM]

 

[ReverendSlappy]

+1E1000000000!!!

Don't you love SMS pushes that cannot be stopped. IT picks 2am thinking that is a good time as everyone in Montreal (where our IT is actually at) is asleep. Problem is that we are a global company and at 2am I am trying to work remotely from Asia and it is the middle of the flappin' day. Am I offered a choice to delay the install? NNNOOOOOoooooo!!! This is a monthly security update that must be complied with and not delayed by a second or the whole network will come crashing down.

Which is a cute little complaint to make ("Oh noes!!!11! My PC runs slow for like FOUR WHOLE MINUTES!!!! WAAAAAAAH!") -- right up until you're the person stuck working through 2AM, trying to get thousands of users working again, for days straight because Johnny Important Guy who was too special for patches decides to infect himself with a Code Red or a SQL Slammer kind of bug.

The irony of the discussion is making me really laugh. It is not just Matt that I am saying this about. But these same guys that are so pro-IT policy are the same guys who argue to the death in the SZ about zero tolerance, one size fit all policies in our laws and regulations being so wrong. The only thing that has changed is that in this case they are the ones charged with supporting the policies and regulations.

There's no irony in it whatsoever: The reality is that you can have both what you need and we can have the manageability and security we're charged with providing... All you have to do is uphold your end of the deal and provide us with the resources we need and a clear communication of what you need.

But instead, like in so many other things, rather than taking an active role in trying to improve the situation by going through the proper channels and doing what they're supposed to do, most people are content to simply ***** and moan from the cheap seats and leave it at that. No sympathy here. That's why I left supporting users and do development (and some production application infrastructure work.) The stakeholders all actually get the simple reality that doing the job right involves more than just being a crybaby.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

The CIO who says that she is charged with the protection of the network and cannot risk any deviation from policy because of potential losses to information and productivity. She sounds like the head of the TSA to me.

Golly, if she's doing such a terrible job, it's too bad she doesn't have a boss to take care of the situation and set her strai... Oh.



Edit: And speaking of satisfaction surveys... Part of a gig I had was developing one internally and analyzing the results. We came away from it noting that there were a few business units who scored the service very high, most scored it above average, and a few business units that scored it very low. We ran that data up against Problem Management data to see if the BUs who were scoring their service very low were actually taking part in the process that, you know, exists to make things better. What kind of correlation do you think we found?

 

[ScottM]

We ran that data up against Problem Management data to see if the BUs who were scoring their service very low were actually taking part in the process that, you know, exists to make things better. What kind of correlation do you think we found?

That those biz units had gotten so disgusted with the poor support that they got from IT in years past that they had given up all hope and just stopped working with IT?

BTW a thing that really annoys me is that if you are a VP you get "Executive IT Support".

EITS has people in each building that are dispatched to a VPs office within 30 minutes to take care of any problem that they have. Wanna guess how complaints sound to the VPs? "Gee really you guys don't like IT, I always get good support from them..."

Thankfully executive support sits close to me and I know the guys so they sometimes are able to help me.

 

[mikea]

+1E1000000000!!!

Don't you love SMS pushes that cannot be stopped. IT picks 2am thinking that is a good time as everyone in Montreal (where our IT is actually at) is asleep. Problem is that we are a global company and at 2am I am trying to work remotely from Asia and it is the middle of the flappin' day. Am I offered a choice to delay the install? NNNOOOOOoooooo!!! This is a monthly security update that must be complied with and not delayed by a second or the whole network will come crashing down.

The irony of the discussion is making me really laugh. It is not just Matt that I am saying this about. But these same guys that are so pro-IT policy are the same guys who argue to the death in the SZ about zero tolerance, one size fit all policies in our laws and regulations being so wrong. The only thing that has changed is that in this case they are the ones charged with supporting the policies and regulations.

Similar point. This SMS push happened the MOMENT I signed in. I only got the privilege of seeing an "approved" fly by on the task bar to know it was legit. So far I have the guy in Bangalore asking if I'm still having the problem. Only every time I use the web, ... No. It self-healed.

When the last one crashed I was asked if I could go to a company site so they could fix it. My office is on VPN. Once again they can ASSume that every employee can just plug in, if not, start driving. Gonna be a pain for guys working in Hong Kong.

At the office LAN in a borrowed desk I got to see that my main app wouldn't let me in because the DNS said I was "FROM THE INTERNET". Of course I report that and was told if I couldn't reproduce it didn't happen. Guess I need to drive an hour again or just live with being called a liar vs. the usual of being an idiot.

FOR MANY MONTHS: It takes 10-20 minutes to see the web page! I spend all day watching a progress bar.

- "No, it doesn't! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Today: - "We discovered there's a problem with network latency at other offices."

Another one: I'm getting auto-nastygrams that I need to FAX in my expense receipts. I was told in no uncertain terms I can't have a FAX and the FAX software is no longer sold. They have the PC locked down so I can't get the docs off in any form to FAX them from another PC. I need to print (also cant have that $10 cable!) and go to the UPS store.

 

[ScottM]

Similar point. This SMS push happened the MOMENT I signed in. I only got the privilege of seeing an "approved" fly by on the task bar to know it was legit. So far I have the guy in Bangalore asking if I'm still having the problem. Only every time I use the web, ... No. It self-healed.

My old laptop had some extra firewall software on it as I often have to log into non-company networks. Amazing how all the IP addresses from IT and the SMS servers became blocked on that PC.

We just got a new anti virus package. The old one was ok, but even though it was locked down I could still adjust the schedule for my mandatory weekly full run. The new version with a new policy will not let users change the schedule. So instead of lunch time on Wednesdays, which worked for me, it now starts first thing every Monday morning. Even though I have an early conference call and it takes almost 30 minutes to get onto Outlook because the FRAPPIN' Norton package we use SUCKS all the compute cylces for a virus scan.

If any new last minute documents are being reviewed on that call I have to do without and hope that none of the changes will impact our strategic position. But hey, we have a policy that keeps us safe! That'll look good on the CIO's report! And isn't that what really matters?

It is so funny that I work with so many other companies and we can argue all morning long about a technical topic, but at lunch time we unite and ***** about our respective IT departments. It is a universal truth. Gherry, you are one of the few Intel guys I have heard say that they get good support. The guys in Portland do not seem to share your opinion. They do like the shuttle though!!

I ran a remote office in Wisconsin for my company and one of the best thing I ever did was to convince IT that we needed a once a week visit from IT to go over all of our problems. We paid for it but we had a dedicated resource who would work all of our issues every Friday. It was heaven! Any problem, you called him and he would add it to his list, he set stuff up for us and best of all he knew and trusted us enough that he (don't tell anyone) gave us all the passwords to our servers so that if something really went blewie we could fix it ourselves. See telecom and IT are very similar. Having to baby us gets under our noses as we are the ones that have usually invented the stuff that IT is administering.

 

[mikea]

My old laptop had some extra firewall software on it as I often have to log into non-company networks. Amazing how all the IP addresses from IT and the SMS servers became blocked on that PC.
We just got a new anti virus package. The old one was ok, but even though it was locked down I could still adjust the schedule for my mandatory weekly full run. The new version with a new policy will not let users change the schedule. So instead of lunch time on Wednesdays, which worked for me, it now starts first thing every Monday morning. Even though I have an early conference call and it takes almost 30 minutes to get onto Outlook because the FRAPPIN' Norton package we use SUCKS all the compute cylces for a virus scan.


If any new last minute documents are being reviewed on that call I have to do without and hope that none of the changes will impact our strategic position. But hey, we have a policy that keeps us safe! That'll look good on the CIO's report! And isn't that what really matters?

It is so funny that I work with so many other companies and we can argue all morning long about a technical topic, but at lunch time we unite and ***** about our respective IT departments. It is a universal truth. Gherry, you are one of the few Intel guys I have heard say that they get good support. The guys in Portland do not seem to share your opinion. They do like the shuttle though!!

Slappy says it's your fault for not asking IT if you can work earlier. You Can't be doing anything important with mere Word document - like I told the guy who was asking if he could take over my computer for the 2nd try at applying the patch while I was on a call with 12 VP levels.

I just thought I can go though the pain of trying to get a shareware FAX app approved as a standard. I'm 95% sure It'll be turned down because all offices have a fax machine you can use.

 

[wsuffa]

Look, first of all, it's pretty simple, and it cuts one of two ways:

• If on the one hand, business management decides to work with their IT provider -- whoever it is, internal or external -- effectively communicates their needs, pays for the service they expect, and understands the stone-simple reality that they share mutual interests, they're very likely to get service they're very happy with if their IT provider is the least bit competent.
• If, on the other hand, management is of the view that their responsibility starts with wanting everything for free and ends with crying like spoiled little children when they don't get what they want, they're probably not going to wind up very happy no matter how good or bad the IT staff is.

Secondly, if IT is "fighting" management and winning, uh, guess what? The problem almost certainly ain't with IT -- if there even is a problem. Because unless the little arrows on the org chart go from IT Manager/CIO, up to God Himself, and then down to CEO/President, there's no excuse for that. None -- if that's even really what's happening.

Thirdly, if you think those kinds of problems -- the blame for which is at least shared by business managment -- are going to get better after outsourcing... um... Best of luck.

Edit: Oh, and...





Q.E.D.

Cuts both ways. IT has to have an attitude of working WITH management. I've personally seen an IT group tell a CFO and a division president to "stuff it" when management told them what to do.

The real problem comes when IT hires high-priced consultants to come in and tell them how to do things. Generally, the consultants come in and say "best practices" without even interviewing or gaining an understanding of user or management needs.

It becomes the TSA versus the user. And the user (and management) lose. Even if management fights for what they need (management shouldn't need to fight, but often they do).

The attitude I see from you here is *precisely* the sort of thing that discourges discourse between management and user and IT.

Outsourced? Depends on the provider. I've had good luck and bad luck. And Scott is right about *some* of CSC's services. If nothing else, competing the IT function *forces* the internal folks to be responsive to management because they lose their jobs if the outsourced providers are better.

Oh, I'm one of those senior managers that believes in evaluating VALUE, of which price is ONLY ONE component.

 

[wsuffa]

Also, I should point out - management drives IT's decisions here. Management almost took away this company's internet completely. Our existence is the only reason people have SOME internet at all.

Maybe in your organization. But in many organizations, it's like this: "We're the experts, you're not, and if we don't to this then you'll be in the seven gates of hell. Oh, and we'll go to the audit committee or we'll pull the plug. Then see if you get ANYTHING done."

Which is the way it's supposed to be and the way I'm sure it really is in just about every case. And which is why it's clearly absurd to blame all of every single problem exclusively on IT.

If you think that's the way it is in just about every case then you need to get out in the real world. In most cases, IT does NOTHING to ascertain user needs. They tell the users what the user's needs are. I can't post the survey I just got from our IT group, but it was very much like a political "push" poll.

Horse****.

The problem -- if there is one -- is that we don't "ASSume" anything. What we expect is to have users communicate what exactly it is that you "NEED" and whether or not those "NEEDs" are being met -- and we expect that to be communicated in an effective, professional manner via the proper channels.

Further, we expect to be given the resources required to meet those expectations.

Again, this is stone simple. If your tech needs are consistently not being met it's for one of a few reasons:
1) You're not effectively communicating -- and escalating where necessary -- the problems you're experiencing.
2) Your management isn't effectively communicating their business's needs.
3) Somebody senior to you has decided your supposed "problem" isn't as important as you think it is. Tough taco.
4) Everybody senior to you has decided your problems are, in fact, important, and effectively and appropriately communicated your and your business's needs to IT but hasn't given IT the resources required to get you what you need.
5) IT isn't doing their job.

Right there. You want everyone to come to you. IT is a service organization. It should be proactively surveying, monitoring, and analyzing customer needs - NOT by being passive and saying "you must come to us", but by getting into the workplace and seeing how IT is used, and how it can improve productivity.

In a perfect world, IT would do the same kind of thing that P&G does with product development and research: P&G actually goes into peoples homes and researches the problems, then comes up with a workable solution.

I have NEVER seen an IT group do that.

The real issue is that IT people tend to be promoted from the bottom up. They never have to spend time in operations, marketing, sales, production, supply-chain, distribution, manufacturing, or delivery. You cannot manage or provide a service until you understand the issues. And 9 out of 10 times, IT doesn't have that experience or understanding.

 

[jesse]

In a perfect world, IT would do the same kind of thing that P&G does with product development and research: P&G actually goes into peoples homes and researches the problems, then comes up with a workable solution.

I have NEVER seen an IT group do that.

They're out there. I can say that some of the best decisions I've made have happened after I put myself in our users shoes.

Our situation is a bit different as we're a very technical company and not only does IT provide for our users we also provide the infrastructure in which our products run on -- which is used by our clients.

I've discovered that if I cause an outage (it happens) that the best thing I can do is to take a few incoming calls -- it helps me understand what I just did. Not only that -- if I randomily grab a support case once or twice a day and call the client themselves it is amazing how impressed they are by getting someone on the phone who can personally directly take care of their issue.

It also helps to just sit down randomly with users and see how they work. Often , 10 minutes of attention by those that can change something, can save several people hundreds of hours per year.

Luckily I'm in an enviornment where I can do the above. Not that it couldn't be done in a larger corporation if directed so by IT management.

I personally am not convinced that half the crap "IT" does in many companies accomplishes much more than slowing down computers, slowing down employees, while making themselves look important, and claiming to "protect data" from "evil hackers"--when 95% of what they do isn't going to stop a person smart enough to jack or damage the data in the first place.

What do you expect when you take IT folks out of tech schools and then have vendors selling security products to them all day? They have no ****ing idea what the *real* threats are. Nor do they understand the real problems of the company. They also fail to understand that they are there to SERVE the company and support the company's mission.

 

[wsuffa]

They're out there. I can say that some of the best decisions I've made have happened after I put myself in our users shoes.

Our situation is a bit different as we're a very technical company and not only does IT provide for our users we also provide the infrastructure in which our products run on -- which is used by our clients.

I've discovered that if I cause an outage (it happens) that the best thing I can do is to take a few incoming calls -- it helps me understand what I just did. Not only that -- if I randomily grab a support case once or twice a day and call the client themselves it is amazing how impressed they are by getting someone on the phone who can personally directly take care of their issue.

It also helps to just sit down randomly with users and see how they work. Often , 10 minutes of attention by those that can change something, can save several people hundreds of hours per year.

Luckily I'm in an enviornment where I can do the above. Not that it couldn't be done in a larger corporation if directed so by IT management.

I personally am not convinced that half the crap "IT" does in many companies accomplishes much more than slowing down computers, slowing down employees, while making themselves look important, and claiming to "protect data" from "evil hackers"--when 95% of what they do isn't going to stop a person smart enough to jack or damage the data in the first place.

What do you expect when you take IT folks out of tech schools and then have vendors selling security products to them all day? They have no ****ing idea what the *real* threats are. Nor do they understand the real problems of the company. They also fail to understand that they are there to SERVE the company and support the company's mission.

Impressive, Jesse. You're a great asset. Both to them and to us here. ^

 

[wsuffa]

These days, my principal concerns are social networking sites (because of the remarkable amount of time they can waste)

Be careful of which ones. Some, like Linked-In, are virtual yellow-pages for people you need to be associating with.

But, yeah, unchecked use of certain sites is a productivity killer.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

That those biz units had gotten so disgusted with the poor support that they got from IT in years past that they had given up all hope and just stopped working with IT?

No, that they're not willing to hold up their end of the bargain and take part in the process that WAS MADE TO ADDRESS THESE KINDS OF ISSUES -- and that they were ABERRATIONS.

If you had a problem with, say, HR consistently not passing you candidates for jobs you had posted, would you do the same thing and throw up your hands and just flush the whole process down the toilet? If your car had a problem, would you just say "Screw it! I'm not taking it to a mechanic! I'm just gonna sit here and whine about how I can't go anywhere! Oh, and everybody who works on cars sucks with their holier than thou attitude!"?

No. You'd take the appropriate actions to get the problem resolved. If you don't and prefer to go the crybaby route? No sympathy. None.

For some reason, everybody just expects IT to a) have tech ESP and know all these problems exist despite not being told about them and b) fix them all for free. Sorry, doesn't work that way.

BTW a thing that really annoys me is that if you are a VP you get "Executive IT Support".

EITS has people in each building that are dispatched to a VPs office within 30 minutes to take care of any problem that they have. Wanna guess how complaints sound to the VPs? "Gee really you guys don't like IT, I always get good support from them..."

Thankfully executive support sits close to me and I know the guys so they sometimes are able to help me.

And those are the same executives who've decided that you don't warrant the same level of service -- and the extra cost associated with it. But yeah, yeah, I know, that's IT's fault.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

Similar point. This SMS push happened the MOMENT I signed in. I only got the privilege of seeing an "approved" fly by on the task bar to know it was legit. So far I have the guy in Bangalore asking if I'm still having the problem. Only every time I use the web, ... No. It self-healed.

When the last one crashed I was asked if I could go to a company site so they could fix it. My office is on VPN. Once again they can ASSume that every employee can just plug in, if not, start driving. Gonna be a pain for guys working in Hong Kong.

At the office LAN in a borrowed desk I got to see that my main app wouldn't let me in because the DNS said I was "FROM THE INTERNET". Of course I report that and was told if I couldn't reproduce it didn't happen. Guess I need to drive an hour again or just live with being called a liar vs. the usual of being an idiot.

FOR MANY MONTHS: It takes 10-20 minutes to see the web page! I spend all day watching a progress bar.

- "No, it doesn't! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Today: - "We discovered there's a problem with network latency at other offices."

Another one: I'm getting auto-nastygrams that I need to FAX in my expense receipts. I was told in no uncertain terms I can't have a FAX and the FAX software is no longer sold. They have the PC locked down so I can't get the docs off in any form to FAX them from another PC. I need to print (also cant have that $10 cable!) and go to the UPS store.

My old laptop had some extra firewall software on it as I often have to log into non-company networks. Amazing how all the IP addresses from IT and the SMS servers became blocked on that PC.

We just got a new anti virus package. The old one was ok, but even though it was locked down I could still adjust the schedule for my mandatory weekly full run. The new version with a new policy will not let users change the schedule. So instead of lunch time on Wednesdays, which worked for me, it now starts first thing every Monday morning. Even though I have an early conference call and it takes almost 30 minutes to get onto Outlook because the FRAPPIN' Norton package we use SUCKS all the compute cylces for a virus scan.

If any new last minute documents are being reviewed on that call I have to do without and hope that none of the changes will impact our strategic position. But hey, we have a policy that keeps us safe! That'll look good on the CIO's report! And isn't that what really matters?

It is so funny that I work with so many other companies and we can argue all morning long about a technical topic, but at lunch time we unite and ***** about our respective IT departments. It is a universal truth. Gherry, you are one of the few Intel guys I have heard say that they get good support. The guys in Portland do not seem to share your opinion. They do like the shuttle though!!

I ran a remote office in Wisconsin for my company and one of the best thing I ever did was to convince IT that we needed a once a week visit from IT to go over all of our problems. We paid for it but we had a dedicated resource who would work all of our issues every Friday. It was heaven! Any problem, you called him and he would add it to his list, he set stuff up for us and best of all he knew and trusted us enough that he (don't tell anyone) gave us all the passwords to our servers so that if something really went blewie we could fix it ourselves. See telecom and IT are very similar. Having to baby us gets under our noses as we are the ones that have usually invented the stuff that IT is administering.

And -- like I keep saying -- I'm sure you guys have poured the same amount of effort into engaging the proper mechanisms and following the proper processes in making sure that these problems get resolved that you've poured into bitching about them on here, right?

Right?


Riiiiiiiiiight.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

Slappy says it's your fault for not asking IT if you can work earlier. You Can't be doing anything important with mere Word document - like I told the guy who was asking if he could take over my computer for the 2nd try at applying the patch while I was on a call with 12 VP levels.

Yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying.

I just thought I can go though the pain of trying to get a shareware FAX app approved as a standard. I'm 95% sure It'll be turned down because all offices have a fax machine you can use.

Oh, yeah, because you know that "shareware" app is completely free. There's no cost whatsoever associated with it when the 62 people you told about it call up the helpdesk bitching about how "This fax application that Mike on the other side of the floor showed us just stopped working! Fix it now, and I don't care if you've never heard of what I'm talking about and don't have any means whatsoever of supporting it! You guys SUCK!" Yeah, the time the people get to waste talking on the phone with those people is totally free -- not to mention the time that all the people with legitimate issues wind up spending on hold. But yeah, IT just locks stuff like that down because we like to. Yeah.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

Cuts both ways. IT has to have an attitude of working WITH management. I've personally seen an IT group tell a CFO and a division president to "stuff it" when management told them what to do.

The real problem comes when IT hires high-priced consultants to come in and tell them how to do things. Generally, the consultants come in and say "best practices" without even interviewing or gaining an understanding of user or management needs.

It becomes the TSA versus the user. And the user (and management) lose. Even if management fights for what they need (management shouldn't need to fight, but often they do).

The attitude I see from you here is *precisely* the sort of thing that discourges discourse between management and user and IT.

[/quote]

So I'm supposed to sit here and listen to broad-brush criticism of an entire job function because somebody decided to hire some second-rate consultants and/or doesn't have the acumen/stones to effectively manage one of their their operations groups?

Yeah. It's my attitude attitude that discourages discourse. Riiiiiight.

Outsourced? Depends on the provider. I've had good luck and bad luck. And Scott is right about *some* of CSC's services. If nothing else, competing the IT function *forces* the internal folks to be responsive to management because they lose their jobs if the outsourced providers are better.

I'm not anti-outsourcing. But if the kinds of organizational problems exist that cause IT to not know what your needs are now -- and nothing short of punting to an external organization can fix that -- it's very likely that outsourcing isn't going to work out so well.

Competition does work, which is why management should insist on using industry-standard performance metrics as the main basis on which to judge the competitiveness of the service they're getting -- and should audit the results (and let's just say I have a little experience in that regard.) If they're not taking at least that modicum of effort to ensure that they're getting the kind of service they want, they can keep it internal or outsource it, but it's still gonna suck.

Oh, I'm one of those senior managers that believes in evaluating VALUE, of which price is ONLY ONE component.

Of course it is. The problem is that if "My PC is locked down more than I like, and nobody would give me an air card" is the remainder of the basis of your value judgment, I'd say you should probably consider investigating a little deeper.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

If you think that's the way it is in just about every case then you need to get out in the real world. In most cases, IT does NOTHING to ascertain user needs. They tell the users what the user's needs are. I can't post the survey I just got from our IT group, but it was very much like a political "push" poll.

Again, so you've (supposedly) run into a couple lousy IT groups. Super. Painting them all that color is certainly a good way to make sure you get the kind of service you want going forward.

Right there. You want everyone to come to you. IT is a service organization. It should be proactively surveying, monitoring, and analyzing customer needs - NOT by being passive and saying "you must come to us", but by getting into the workplace and seeing how IT is used, and how it can improve productivity.

In a perfect world, IT would do the same kind of thing that P&G does with product development and research: P&G actually goes into peoples homes and researches the problems, then comes up with a workable solution.

I have NEVER seen an IT group do that.

Then you have "NEVER" seen an IT group after people like me have come along -- and have "NEVER" seen any other competent one. I'm guessing, however, that "NEVER" is more than a little hyperbolic.

And in the situations that have existed before I've come along, no, they weren't proactive. But that's not where the story stops: In the best operations, gaps happen. Things fall through the cracks. And in the worst operations, gross incompetence runs rampant. But if your default position in any discussion of basic technology security measures is "IT SUCKS!!!", which shows no interest in taking the next step -- effectively communicating that you have a problem to whom you're supposed to communicate it -- I'm supposed to believe that you're a part of the solution and not a part of the problem? Don't think so.

The real issue is that IT people tend to be promoted from the bottom up. They never have to spend time in operations, marketing, sales, production, supply-chain, distribution, manufacturing, or delivery. You cannot manage or provide a service until you understand the issues. And 9 out of 10 times, IT doesn't have that experience or understanding.

And once again, I'll point out that if the wrong people are getting promoted to senior-level positions, that's a problem bigger than IT. But I suppose that makes for a more complicated discussion, not conducive to "WAAAH! IT SUCKS!"

Edit: And speaking of other operations groups (which IT really is), that's exactly what it should be treated like. Any other operations group has empirical expectations of them set, have their performance quantitatively measured, and are held accountable when they don't meet their goals. Those are management functions, and if they aren't in place and effective who in their right mind, with any bit of sense or competence whatsoever could possibly be surprised when things fall apart? And again, if the default position is a puerile "IT SUCKS!!! I WANT AN AIRCARD!" where exactly are things supposed to go from there?