Nathan: Awesome answers, I think I like arguing with you. SQL has been my bag for a while (which explains my anal retentiveness - - for a while I was going to go the DBA route). I've also done stuff in Java/C and done a lot of application/system design. Education-wise I've got a Systems Analysis diploma and a Programming one. (That was mostly VB/VC though, plus all the design aspects covered in both.) Also to your enquiry about local security, USB ports are locked down in the call center environment, as well as on any machine where the user doesn't have admin rights. I do have admin rights on my laptop, as does most of IT. Contrary to the picture I'm painting, Mussolini hasn't teamed up with Hitler to dictate security policy. It's a comfortable blend between users and those charged with keeping the lights on.

Someone brought up a good point that I've been dodging around because I'm not a fan of fascism... it ain't the employees' network, it's the company. And sorry to bring ITIL into this but keeping services running is of prime importance, not making someone 10% less productive because they can't use their personal laptop with 1GB extra RAM than their company allotted laptop. Call it tyrannical, but if work was fun we'd all have google business cards.