I remember after our Republican representative was re-elected last year, there were posts and letters on the newspaper's site bashing her for votes, especially on the war. I kept posting for a long time, making it clear how much I despised the Republicans but at the same time saying she's doing the job she was elected for. How infuriated would the Democrats be if their gal was elected and then started voting Republican? They do what we ask; we need to start asking for better things.

I post at various "complaint" sites w/o name-calling and simply lay out the actual alternatives. It's easy and eventually shuts people up (I hope it gets them thinking but I have no way to measure that because they tend to stop posting).

The main problem with the whole voting process is that everyone wants something for nothing, many people think that's actually possible, and if a politician plays the taxes and subsidies just right, s/he can reward voters with some new thing for no new money OF THEIRS (supposedly coming out of someone else's pocket who won't pass the new cost along or else payment is deferred to future generations). Everyone involved is at fault.

Another side to this is displayed by some spam e-mail I've seen supposedly written by Jay Leno about how Americans are so unhappy according to polls and why we shouldn't be with our houses and fresh food. I agree we should be happy personally. I love toilet paper and would not want to live without it. But the "don't worry, be happy" thing isn't an answer. Example: I have the same house, food and TP on Monday and Tuesday, but Monday night my country invades Iraq or lands a man on the moon, or starts rounding up and gassing Nazis (to put a bizarre twist on it). If nothing changes about my personal happiness from Monday to Tuesday, then what kind of citizen am I?

I think one solution starts with making people understand at least a little bit of what the other guy is doing. For the most part, management doesn't understand IT, and IT doesn't understand the business. If we hadn't seen it in action, we wouldn't find Dilbert's Pointy Haired Boss so funny.

Full and complete understanding isn't necessary. But if management doesn't understand, for example, that a wireless card is basically a cell phone for the computer, they will get mad at IT when it doesn't work in some locations. If they understand this, they will at minimum blame the provider for poor coverage and ideally realize that you aren't going to get a good signal in the backwoods of North Dakota or the Appalachians, and not expect the some increased performance that we see in urban areas.

Similarly, my department is responsible for developing and supporting our sales tool. Every one of us has been on a ride-along with a rep. None of us will ever be a sales rep, but we understand better how they use our tool, and that changes how we make our program work.

Finally, there needs to be some recognition of what is important in a company. For us, number one is sales. Delivery is one-a. (I could deliver our product in my van, but it works a lot better with our teamsters.) Everything else is secondary. My job is not to support software. My job is to support our reps by helping them use our software.

Some people in IT act like IT is their job. Not unless your company's business is providing computer services. If you are at Boeing, your job is to help build better planes--through IT. If you are at Ford, your job is to help build better cars--through IT. If you are at Citibank, your job is to provide your clients excellent financial services--through IT. When you understand where the data is going, you are better able to anticipate how changes in technology can be used to improve the company's business.

I don't think Congress is stealing our wages, but they've certainly sold out the American people to big business, often at personal gain. :-(