The Disease of IT

On one of my early contracting jobs we had a project manager, let's call him Al, who was never positive about anything. Anything I would bring up, or any idea that somebody would present in a meeting -- Al could almost instantly give you the twenty reasons it would never work. It got so people were afraid of saying anything that might sound happy or optimistic, for fear of having Al shoot them down, yet again.
Al was comfortable with his malaise. To him, most things worked out poorly anyway. Why not just spend your energy identifying all the ways things could go poorly? At least you'll never be disappointed. It's happened several times since then -- I would find myself with a team member who, well, just was depressed. I would say it had something to do with me, but usually these people were as hard on themselves -- even harder -- than they were on others. Al never achieved the success I have. In fact, none of the grumpy-grumps have.
Paranoia also goes hand-in-hand with depression. Many people, when given incomplete information, assume the worst. People form groups -- us against them. "They" are always out to get us, hurt us in some way. If you ask me, a lot of the "Microsoft the Evil Empire" is based on paranoia. Don't get me wrong: I feel Microsoft is a monopoly and should be split up. I just don't think they're the devil incarnate as much as others. To me, demonizing people I've never met is a sign of mental illness. There have been very few really bad famous people in American History: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Genghis Kahn. Bill Gates isn't one of them. That's my opinion -- your money back if you don't like it.
Even at the workplace, how many times have you heard, "those testing guys, they're a bunch of lunatics. They've always been out to destroy our project." or "Marketing is the biggest danger we have to get our job done. Those guys are not to be trusted." It's always us versus them, isn't it?
Finally, OCD. To me, a mild form of OCD is de rigueur for any kind of technical person. Let's face it -- nobody in their right mind sits in front of a computer screen all day long. Likewise, to dig down inside the compiler and pour through disassembler code looking for memory leaks -- look, that's just not normal, folks. But not only is it a requirement for a good coder, we cherish those who have it the worst. I'm not talking about being driven or having purpose -- people who create their own business have drive. I'm talking about deeply psychologically needing to disengage from reality and plug into a computer for days on end.
I've been lucky enough to work at over a couple dozen jobs so far, and if I saw this in just one or two places, it really wouldn't add up. But it's more than that, and there is a pattern.
So that's my call. We IT people are prone to certain kinds of mental illness. Somebody has to ante up and admit it. I figured I would start.