And the fact that management thinks that even though they push green initiatives and money-savers to look trendy and efficient, they still have that concept of "show me what you did".

We're going through that right now. Upper management wants "metrics" and "improvement levels" and all that crap.

It's hard to go "well, I walked from office A to office B for 43 seconds, it took me 2 seconds to open and walk through the door, then 8 more seconds to sit down, then I worked on and resolved the issue in 1,068 seconds. therefore, my efficiency for that project was...".

People who do accounting, HR, data processing, etc., can get away with doing everything by phonecall and email. It's when your helpdesk people have to do hands-on that all the IT management metrics and standards go out the window.

How do you account for the risk management manager stopping you in the hallway to discuss a concept for a project for 5 minutes? Do you risk upsetting him by saying "Please call me for a meeting. I'm working on something else right now." or what?

IT is often set to measure itself by rigid standards, and expected to maintain a flexibility to handle, manage, and accomodate all the various functions and dynamics of an organization.

And at that point, that means your metrics are going to be off, your standards will dictate making up for the discrepancy, your staff is going to be overworked to meet those standards, and work productivity, morale, and personnel retention are going to go down the tubes.