Ask Slashdot: What Are The Lesser-Known Roles Of The IT Department?

chadenright writes: On the same day that I was hired into a new IT position, my new employer also bought a pair of $1,500 conference phones from a third-party vendor, which turned out to be defective; I've spent a chunk of the last two weeks arguing with the vendor. During the process I've learned that, as the IT guy, I'm also the antibody of the corporation and my job is to prevent not just malware and viruses but also junk hardware from entering my business's system. As a software engineer who is new to the IT side of things, I have to ask, what else have you learned about IT?
What fresh hell has this software engineer gotten themselves into? Leave your best answers in the comments. What are the lesser-known roles of the IT department?

Comments

Re: If you thought enterprise IT was just software

[dougdonovan]

lol, IT is everything that should work but doesnt which includes...from the help desk at level 1...the light bulbs in every office to the starbucks coffee pot in a vp's office that got unplugged by the janitor that works graves. as soon as the general public walks out of their house, gets into their vehicle to drive to work...their IQ drops to 0. they just expect IT to work but are clueless on how to plug the coffee pot back in.