Or, as we suspect, are you just too busy doing all this stuff to care? Yes

And what's keeping you so busy? Users

What are the bug bears and headaches taking up inappropriate amounts of your time? Thier idiot problems

What practical ways around these issues are there? Yes, I call it a shotgun.

On a serious note, IT management systems are great for servers, but most of them just don't require that much of my time. I spend about 10 minutes a day checking the backup log and dealing with user additions/deletions, everything else on my plate is because a user has done something stupid. There are just too many ways a user can be an idiot to possible code into a management system.

It's 23:22 and I'm on a server installing SP2 and doing general housekeeping. It would be nice to do this during working hours :s

Days after days, months after months, years after years managers, users have been in touch with IT "solutions" that were doing or have been customized to perfrom very specific functions. Job rotation, company priorities changes and you continue to add "features" that no one knows anymore about 6 months why they are here. And so, our job is made of 1% thinking of the future and 99% ensuring that everything new is still compatible with the history of the company. Add to this that every new tool for business intelligence can be diverted to a content management system, any new office application is a powerfull web content management system, any web server is a workflow tool, you can quickly figure out the mess that is around after only a few years.

Do you think that I have any time for servicing the "management" services on offer. I spend more than enough time chasing the inexplicable faults engineered by "Billy" and his merry men to begin paying out my precious money only to suffer the depradations of I/S/Ps. It woule be lovely scene if they would/could devote their time to supplying what they advertise rather than taking all the time out to separate me from my cash with no visible reward.