We hired our own local IT people for things that required fast turnaround, or groomed one from within the ranks. For small hardware upgrades under $500, like RAM, we'd do it ourselves with discretionary purchases that took under a week to fill, with our own management's approval. For group-wide upgrades someone would order the parts and blaze trails on how to do the upgrade, and send someone from their staff to do it. Basically circumventing the system whenever possible, set up your own systems when others aren't working, is a form of self-correcting situation. When someone calls to tell you to stop, upper management should have a prepared list of instances where they would have been put behind in the schedule / spent more money / gotten poorer quality had they not taken matters into their own hands. If told to stop doing your own after all that, prepare them when they take away your freedom that the schedule may slip, the quality of the product may suffer, and money may be wasted. If they're happy with that, accept that it's their company and not yours.