I have just been promoted to management, after 20 years in the front line. I still haven't moved from the cube farm to my new office, and I've only had one meeting with my new reports. I was doing the same job as always up until last week. So a new manager, or old IT guy, if you will. I used to think like you, and in some ways I still do. But I can tell you first hand that management, even IT management, is not about technology, computers, or network security. Management is about people, and it only took me this long to get this promotion because this is how long it took me to learn that fact. Understand that managers are not typically worried about user interfaces, operating systems, coding, or even network security. That is *your* job. Managers are worried about people, goals, and budget. If you're lucky, in that order. Don't get me wrong, your technical expertise and opinions are important to your manager, or should be. But thinking about a way to let an employee take an extra day off to go visit his daughter he hasn't seen in two years because her ship will only be in port for two days before going back to Afghanistan, without affecting the bottom line too much, without affecting the deadline too much, and without being able to discuss this very personal issue with the guy's coworkers, sometimes take precedence. Then you are left with no explanation why Joe gets an extra day off, it's probably the slacker manager protecting his own kind of people because he's a slacker himself. Try to remember this: IT is about technology, but management is about people.