Here 10 Reasons Why.
We live surrounded by screens, notifications, updates, and a thousand new tools popping up every week. The human brain was simply not built to absorb this much change this fast — and yet, here we all are, pretending we know exactly what’s going on.
I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Coworkers getting more frustrated, more lost, more fed up with technology that never stops evolving. And honestly? I get it. I really do. But I’m also on the other side of the fence — in IT — and there are a few things I really need to get off my chest.
So here are the 10 reasons why IT keeps breaking your heart, over and over again as a fellow IT user.
1. The Jargon Sounds Like a Different Language
URL, VPN, GPT, LLM, WiFi, API, ML… want me to keep going? Because I can. The IT world is packed with acronyms and concepts that 99% of people couldn’t explain under pressure. And the frustrating part? They’re not easy to explain in plain words either. We’re not trying to confuse you — sometimes we’re also googling how to say it in a way that doesn’t sound like a 1990s user manual (that we never read).
2. Everything Changes Before You’ve Learned the Last Thing
Changes in IT move faster than your uncles arguing over grandma’s inheritance at the Christmas dinner table. Our brain’s capacity to absorb new knowledge is limited — pretty limited, honestly. Bitcoin already sounds like ancient history, and that boom was only five years ago, during the pandemic. Five years. Let that sink in.
3. IT Is a Black Box — Sometimes Even for Us
Here’s an uncomfortable truth: IT is a black box even for some IT professionals. I’ve personally met people inside the field who don’t fully understand how everything works either. So imagine how someone from outside must feel trying to navigate it. If even the insiders are sometimes lost, please don’t feel bad for not knowing what a DNS is.
4. The Stereotypes Never Go Away
Always the same story — the IT guy is the weird one, the introvert, the one who can’t hold a normal conversation. Just the other day, I invited a coworker from our team to a gathering at my place, introduced him to a friend of mine, and the first thing she said was: “Oh, another IT guy — he’s definitely an introvert.” And I looked at her and said: “Hey, you can’t judge someone just because he is… introverted.”
We are normal people, kind of.
5. IT Will Say No. And We Mean It.
Every time someone walks into the office with that “just between us” face asking for admin rights — the answer is no. No, no, and no. People don’t really grasp the level of responsibility that comes with full access to a system, as uncle Ben said ” A great power comes with a great responsibility”. It’s like letting someone with green hair get into your house — you have no idea how much damage they can do until it’s already too late.
6. Your Work Laptop Is Not Your Home Laptop
A lot of users expect to manage company technology the same way they use their personal devices at home. What they don’t see is the mountain of relationships, protocols, security policies, and compliance requirements IT has to juggle all at once just to keep everything standing (like your current toxic relationship). We don’t put restrictions in place because we enjoy making your life harder — we do it so the whole thing doesn’t collapse.
7. Just Because You Don’t See Us “Working” Doesn’t Mean We’re Not
While the rest of the office walks around, sends emails, takes calls, and does all the visible stuff — we in IT rarely leave our desks (except for coffee, obviously). That makes it look like nothing is happening on our end. But the fact that your computer works today, your data is safe, and the WiFi hasn’t gone down? That’s on us. Quiet, invisible work — You-are-welcome.
8. The lovely Helpdesk Ticket.
For some mysterious reason, submitting a support ticket feels like an unbearable ordeal for most users. It is, objectively, one of the simplest things you can do in a modern office. And yet it remains the most avoided task in the building. I’m not sure why, I see you spending tons of minutes sharing funny videos, so, sending a ticket is none less than that.
9. Five Minutes of Downtime and the World Is Ending
This is, without a doubt, the most dramatic complaint we receive. I have personally watched people spend hours chatting, drinking their sixth coffee of the day, and gossiping in the hallway — but the moment the internet goes down for five minutes, suddenly everyone is a tireless professional who cannot afford a single second of lost productivity. The same people who were mid-gossip are the first ones to complain. Yes, You know who you are.
10. “Why Don’t I Have the Latest Computer?”
Some users genuinely believe the company is obligated to provide them with the newest, most powerful technology available. The reality is that companies are always trying to spend as little as possible on IT — even though the infrastructure is expensive by nature. We in IT are constantly fighting for a decent budget just to keep things safe and running. So please, work with what you have. You don’t become automatically a better basketball player just because you’re wearing expensive Michael Jordan’s shoes, right?
Final Thought: Take a Breath, and Grab a Colombian Coffee.
I could go on with another ten reasons, but I think the point is made. Users and IT are, at the end of the day, the same team — even if it sometimes feels like we’re playing on opposite sides of the court. We’re not the villains. We’re the ones staying late when the server goes down, the ones nobody calls when everything works fine, and the first ones everyone looks for when something breaks.
So the next time IT breaks your heart by asking you to submit a ticket, or stopping you from access your instagram profile during work hours — take a deep breath, grab your mug of coffee, and remember that someone is quietly working to make sure tomorrow everything still runs (while you keep gossiping across the hallway).
Have a great day!
~ Bitvorous.
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