A less obvious example occurred in another company, where a group of new IT execs had signed on to implement one of those "Big Shiny New Systems That Solve All IT Problems Forever". They developed a hostility to the legacy system crew, who, they argued, made their job harder by continuing to extend the old system. This got worse as the project was (predictably) delayed.

The split went all the way to the top, unfortunately, so there was no one to encourage the groups to work together. As a result, a lot of work was duplicated and most of the crew from both teams were gone inside of a year.

Generic Happy Fun Time Activities

Many morale- and community-building activities employed by organizations don't make much of an impact on IT personnel, and particularly on programmers. It's not necessarily that programmers are socially awkward, but often a kind of cynicism is prevalent. For reasons that could take a book to investigate and articulate, IT staff tends to run toward a stoic cynicism (with an occasional hyperdramatic diva case).

The upshot is that I've never seen a company-wide picnic, dinner, dance or potluck that actually strengthened an IT team. Or perhaps the cause and effect is reversed: It's easy for IT to feel like it has to constantly justify its own existence and defend itself from users who have found that "the computer is down" is a good way to avoid work. Generic company-wide boosterism can have a hollow ring.

There's also a wide variety of social comfort levels and workloads. I've attended several potlucks or company-sponsored luncheons where IT simply grabbed food and went back to work. That doesn't create much of a team feeling - but then neither does trying to force people who are uncomfortable or busy into socializing.