这里最后一篇文章的日期写的是 9 月 22 日。久违了。这两个月来说忙也忙说乱也乱，另一个没有更新内容的原因是我工作的机构的 IT 管理政策大变，总部的 IT 部门与中国方面的”对立”由来已久，这次”冲突升级”，降低所有中国办公室电脑的权限到标准受限用户，不能安装任何程序，原来已安装的程序也被付费请来的第三方机构删除。如此大动干戈的原因是因为那些个美国人收到很多我们电脑出故障的报告，远程之后又发现了很多病毒和木马，认为所有的问题是因为我们乱装软件——尤其是盗版——之故。事实上他们常常把解决不了的问题都归咎于此。

美国虽然在电脑技术上很领先，但多数美国人其实在这方面都很笨很保守，我们机构的 IT 部门即为一例。今天收到命令让我把 Office 2007 也除掉换成 2003，于是怒火中烧，写了下面的信发给下命令的 Operation Manager 和广州的同事。（说明：机构名称被隐去，由 ACME 代替。）

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

I’m writing this email because I’m very angry, about ACME’s IT policies! And I’m against the limitation that kills everything in our laptops no matter good or bad, legal or illegal.

Limited to my experience, I’ve never seen a IT department in any company, except IT company, has such great power to control other business departments, but, however, I see here; I believe, always, that Services departments, like IT department, will serve other business department via providing easy and convenient services, but, however, I don’t see here.

I completely understand IT’s concerns on illegal software, but I don’t understand why we’re limited in a machine that gives us no room for anything good for productivity (even they are legal and free), and I don’t understand why any problems that IT department are not able to solve are caused by software we installed and virus that living anywhere in internet world. An example, I’m using a laptop that will work all the time even if I close the lid. The organization who wants to record all the CO2 emission and wants to be green allows computers consuming power all the time. Unfortunately, I don’t have the privilege to change the settings. I thought I’m an employee here, not a prisoner.

In my eyes, the IT department in ACME is conservative and slow in responding to the rapid changes of IT world. They don’t want to change even the changes probably mean productivity and convenience; they don’t want to change because they don’t want to bring more work to themselves, though they claim it’s for safety reason – by the way, the anti-virus software in our laptops are released in 2006.

Previously you received a FISI report, if you happen to like the style in the presentation, please give thanks to MS Office 2007. Basically, Office 2003 and other tools can make similar results but I’ll need much more time. Now our IT decline the Office 2007, saying 2007 contains many bugs and it’s not easy to use. If they say we don’t have money so we don’t deploy it. I could probably accept, but, I don’t accept above excuses. The 2007 is the most powerful version of MS Office suite so far and MS has decided to stop selling Office 2003 to promote 2007. Bugs, sure, any software contains bugs, Windows XP has more so that MS keeps releasing service packages to remedy them.  Why not we stop using Window XP? I don’t think bugs in 2007 version more than 2003. People need to be taught to use new tool. I agree and I believe it’s the reason why we need a IT department, right?  Yes, people hate to change, unless changes mean good.

I understand IT departments in big companies are conservative, but we’re not big. Why does our IT need to pretend so? Why not we take advantages of our smallness and become more flexible?

If one day I quit, the nightmare IT department must be one big reason.