In ordinary times, they moved among us largely unnoticed. Now we can’t get enough of them. The Covid-19 pandemic has thrust once-anonymous IT support workers into a new role: corporate saviors.
As millions of employees make the transition from well-maintained office equipment to jury-rigged kitchen table setups, information technology departments have been called upon to keep companies online and connected. Requests range in size and scale, from replacing employees’ US$5 (RM22) mouses, to speeding up networks, to keeping multimillion-dollar data centers up and running.