It's undeniable that the road has been bumpy. And that we're at least three years into "transition" with little improvement to the road.

I've personally dealt with a number of SSC provided services. Wait times on procurements and approvals for software have vastly expanded. What used to take a day or two typically now seems to take about two months. The types of requests, even the approvals haven't changed much (typically, can I buy this piece of data analysis software for my analysts---no storage or network impacts at all), but the approvals times now are orders of magnitude worse.

I've also had many run-ins with the back-up and security teams. Both of those have been very difficult, with few people on the SSC side understanding any of the issues we have as end-users, and wishing only to impose their whims or how we should work. As a result, data is far less secure (physically) and operational procedures have become significantly more complex.

A small example: SSC now tracks all USB sticks we use (a good idea). They were horribly concerned that USB sticks not be used for non-intended purposes, in particular taking them off site. The person charged with implementing this policy had come to SSC from Corrections Canada. Perhaps not the best client-facing person they could have chosen. The first idea proposed was to attach a USB stick by a wire to a hockey stick, like the keys at a gas station. This was their operational plan for our whole department. Eventually, after 6 months of weekly "tiger-team" meetings, face to face discussions, weeks-long trials of all their crazy ideas (in my lab and a sister lab), we ended up with inventory labels and some warning text only. Which is where we should have been on the first week, but it took six months of arguing to get there.

So no, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the argument that this is just the expected small irritants of SSC bringing the light of modernity to us benighted ignorant users. Many SSC folks need to understand that we're here to deliver results, not waste tax payer dollars on delays and arbitrary protocols enacted out of whim.