If you can't google for something as basic as that - then maybe the bus. guy was right about you being lazy.
It's pretty standard for managing the government IT infrastructure. They're what, GBP 20Bn over budget on the NHS alone... And it seems every week there's a story in the papers about them losing a million people's personal data. ITIL is a red flag on anyone's CV IMHO.
Though it is interesting to see that ITIL originated in the UK, which might explain why not everyone has heard of it.
BTW, here's an article from '05 describing ITIL use in the US (and ITIL's history): http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/95672
It was soul sucking.
I am in the UK, but hadnt heard of ITIL prior to the job, noone I know that can program has heard of it, I occasionally meet some business guys that have though.
Remember everyone - there's a whole world of companies out there who don't know or care what AJAX or Python or Ruby is. They want to make the stuff they need to make, server their customers, and use computers as what they really are - a tool that should make stuff easier - not harder. (And it's in those industries that there is a lot of opportunity).
Oh - and don't take this as a post glorifying ITIL.. I think it's overdone and too verbose for an awful lot of companies.. (what do you expect coming out of a gov dept.) What I haven't seen is much of an alternative.
It's great to live in a world where management loves and respect us! A world where they try to understand what is hard about software development instead of thinking about how much time it takes to "place a button there" :)