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I'm a programmer, so desktop support/management is out of my purview. I just spoke with one of our IT staff, though, and she confirmed what you state here. Sh

I'm a programmer, so desktop support/management is out of my purview. I just spoke with one of our IT staff, though, and she confirmed what you state here. She said that in my department, support is close to zero because developers are better at managing their computers, but the majority of her work is made up of fixing the computers of assistants and researchers who've managed to do something silly, and do not have the knowledge or skill to back out the change. Also, these are the same people who forward dangerous, non-work emails through Outlook, or get caught in a phishing expedition using IE. So it's clearly not as simple a problem as it seems from either side. I assume there's a cost/benefit ratio that might be (additional productivity) - (additional IT staff) > zero. That said, I like the freedom to use the tools that work for me. I'd be pretty angry if IT policy changed, so my perspective is colored.

skolor 17y ago
And that, unfortunately, is the biggest problem with IT policy. It is deceptively easy to give permission for an application for one or two people, but once you start trying to take anything away you have a total shit-storm on your hands. This is the primary reason IT policy tends towards white-listing (you can only use the applications/sites wee say you can) rather than blacklisting (you can use any apps/sites, except...). IT already takes a lot of crap from the users, adding in the complaints from users who have been told "No, you can't use the app you've relied on for years" is generally a bad idea.