IT workers pushed to the limits

Tempers flared inside a San Francisco datacenter on Friday, June 20, igniting the greatest public spectacle pitting a lone tech worker against management, media, and the law. Tension between network admin Terry Childs and his managers had been simmering for years and reached a boiling point on one of the hottest days of the summer.

Childs allegedly harassed a new manager on that day and, later, held captive San Francisco's omnipresent data network. This landed him in jail on charges of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; the judge gave him a punishing $5 million bail.

[ Follow the Terry Childs saga blow by blow in InfoWorld's special report. | Read the actual court documents. ]

Like a match falling on dry leaves, the Childs case spurred techies to the blogosphere bearing angry messages and not-so-veiled threats: "Many an IT worker has been cursed with incompetent superiors," "I've seen no-win situations in the past where management set me up to take the fall … and I protected myself, too," and "This could very well have been written about myself if I decide to go rogue in my city."

The manager-techie relationship has always been a rocky one. At the heart of the discontent, the two struggle to understand and respect what each other does. Every few years, the relationship is further strained by collisions at the intersection of business and technology, from the Y2K debacle to pricey enterprise software to cost-cutting measures like offshoring and outsourcing.

Over the last couple of years, the temperature inside the IT department has risen steadily to an all-time high. With so much uncertainty and angst brought on by a sputtering economy, the tech worker now stews in his cubicle on the verge of a mental meltdown.

Even worse, the complex technology that companies today depend on to run their businesses lies in the firestorm's path.

The pressures on IT continue to mount -- and put the enterprise at risk
Many tech workers toil in lean staffs, face unrealistic expectations, and worry daily about job security. News reports show that more IT cuts are on the horizon, adding to those concerns. In fact, every tech worker I interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of management reprisal.

Consider the observations of a tech staffer inside the University of California system: "We are continually understaffed and typically not allocated the budget to handle the demands," the staffer says.

And it's getting worse as the campus, in a desperate attempt to save money, tries to centralize as much technical work as possible, the staffer says. "This causes more problems than it solves" because the centralized services group is also woefully lacking in resources. "They're usually in the same state as we are in and unable to handle projects or even services in a constant manner," the staffer says.