I've noticed Internal Billing really helps cut back on the crap and unnecessary tasks that we used to get given.

That coupled with not letting the business make work requests directly to the DBA team but via an intermediary who both understands the business and requirements and also translating that into something meaningful to a DBA. Whilst blocking stupid and redundant requests. But you really need a person who can say no when necessary.

Most of the ones I come accross are all yes-men (or women, or people)

But most places I've been treat any technical department (of any kind, dev, graphics, dba) as a bottomless resource - and part of that problem started when adopting the term 'resource' to refer to a human being. But I wont get into a rant about meaningless management speak though.