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What I actually encountered:
Staff "rationalisation" had lost the knowledgeable and retained the incompetant/ignorant:
* not a single program (including OS) was patched-up-to-date;
* hardware/software installed in last 8-months all remained set to manufacturer defaults.
* intrusion detection/logging had been turned off because the increasingly frequent alarms/notifications were "distracting".
* etc.
Multiple someones had been having a field-day for over 6-months. Those backups that would install were corrupted. I spent five long days ripping the system apart, detailing the history of intrusion and damage, and outlining solutions.
Upon submitting my report and collecting payment (they complained loudly) I ran for the nearest exit declining future involvement.
What Little House of Computer Horrors have you stepped into recently?
Have you managed to escape?
Unchanged?
Turned out the lady had acidentally turned "Num Lock" off and hadn't evolved enough to figure that one out. Actually it took us a good 10 minutes on the phone before I figured out what was going on.
Sounds like an urban myth, I know. But it really happened to me.
Scream and run!
To prove a point scanned their servers and gained root access from home - the next morning I rang them and gave detailed instructions on how they could avoid this in future.
No one did anything about.
I probably shouldn't comment on the nightmares I've seen. Mostly, upper management will trim down the IT staff to bare minimum and won't lift a finger until something disastrous occurs, then look for a scapegoat. So what you have are a skeleton crew of overworked but exceptionally talented admins doing way too much, having no time to keep themselves or their equipment up to date, and oportunity springs up everywhere for problems.
