The purpose of IT is to seamlessly and transparently provide the other
9/10's of the iceberg for people who need to work with chunks of floating
ice.

This would explain why sysadmins are so often equipped with only poles   
and kayaks and told to go out and keep the shipping lanes clear.

"Twin turbo diesel pushers of several hundred horsepower each?  Why do
 you need that?  That's just a little chunk of ice!  Now stop web surfing
 and go out there and push it out of the way in your kayak.  By the
 way, since the ice is getting smaller, we've cut the pole budget for
 this month. Yours is shorter now, but you should be able to get by."

  -- Strata Rose Chalup