Lets be clear about a couple things here.
1) I can be a jerk. lol.
2) Unless you are in IT, IT is the bad guy at your company. Everyone hates us. Its a thankless job, which causes #1. We are blamed for everything on an end user level. Even if (and usually especially if) its a PEBKAC issue. And forget the end user level, we are cursed at the executive level too because the bean counters see IT as a necessary evil. We are a black hole. It costs money for us to run things right, but no one wants to pay for it because IT infrastructure doesnt generate revenue.
3) In regards to being the gatekeeper. Its my ass on the line. At the company I work at the unspoken policy is to give the end user enough internet access rope to hang themselves with. I dont spy on users, I dont provide internet history reports unsolicited (and only 2 have been solicited in the last 11 years). I dont care what you do. I am not your supervisor who is worried about worker productivity. Thats not my job. That is the respective department supervisors job. My job is to keep the networks flowing so we can do business. If something goes wrong there the whole company shuts. We cant take electronic orders, we can't ship the orders we have, we cant bill the customers we shipped to,employees cant get paid.. etc...etc.... Its a ton of pressure. So excuse me if I get pissed when someone opens an attachment while checking their home email on their work computer and introduces a virus to the network. And then the question from management isnt "Why did that user check his home email on work equipment" the question is "Why cant you keep the network secure" . The Department of Defense gets hacked. THe CIA gets hacked. But Im supposed to have DoD security on my IT budget?
Listen guys. The next time you walk by your IT guy, give him a hug. It's a brutal world.
