Accessing systems behind uncontrolled firewall

I'll try to make this short and sweet.

About five offices will be getting backup machines made by me. I want to be able to access these machines via SSH if nothing else. The problem lies in the firewalling involved. Here's what I can and cannot do:

* I have full control of three firewalls, and can open ports as needed there.
* Two firewalls are controlled by "the guy upstairs" who was fired for computer services in favor of hiring someone else (who happened to become me). The problem is that he runs the entire office building's networking, not just the company offices I service, and he's not likely going to cooperate. Hence I have zero control and can open nothing for unsolicited outside connections.
* I have full control of my home systems. I have cable internet and two Linux systems (1 router, 1 server) that run 24/7 here.

What I want to do is be able to access the otherwise land-locked machines despite the firewall and the uncooperative BOFH upstairs. My general idea is to have the servers I am building open up some kind of a tunnel automatically to my home via SSH, PPTP, IPsec, whatever, and use that to pipe data back and forth. However, I have little knowledge of SSH and VPNs at the present date, and Googling isn't pulling up anything quite like what I'm asking.

I know this can be done. GoToMyPC does something like this with their software to pierce firewalls, but that stuff is proprietary, costs money, and is a Windows-only solution.

A little help?

~Jody Bruchon
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