Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

More than half of employees yell at their computers (survey)

By | December 19, 2011, 1:28pm PST

Summary: Do you ever take out your frustration on your computer? Or is your computer the source of the problem?

The holidays can be a stressful time — especially if even your computer is getting on your nerves.

New research from TrackVia, a company that specializes in enabling businesses build their own Software-as-a-Service platforms, reports that at least 3 in 5 U.S. workers admitted that they have caught themselves yelling at their computers out of frustration with the software they were using.

Some employees have gotten so upset that at least 18 percent of the survey respondents replied that they have actually wanted to quit their jobs because of frustration with software programs.

For reference, the survey was based on responses from 350 non-IT and non C-level employees in the United States who use computers and software daily as part of their job.

Some of the most common improvement wishes revolved around being more user friendly and designed better at boosting productivity. At least 22 percent of respondents thought that four to 10 hours of work time are wasted each month due to problems with software.

TrackVia’s CEO Pete Khanna explained in the report that tapping into this frustration reveals a much larger issue at play:

This information also highlights the disconnect that often occurs between the people designing or buying software and the people using it. Clearly, this divide comes at a significant cost in terms of usability and productivity for the people who use company-provided software every day.

So are the happiest employees the ones who just bypass the provided software and go with their own choices, whether it is approved by the IT department or not? It would seem that there is also a connection here between this hostile trend and the rising rate of employees (especially younger generations) breaking IT regulations by using their own software picks and/or bringing their own devices to work.

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Topics

Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

Disclosure

Rachel King

Rachel King has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted in this blog.

Biography

Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco. Before serving as a contributing editor at ZDNet in New York City for two years, she previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish America Magazine and the New York Daily News, among others. Rachel has a B.A. in Mass Communications and History from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, where she served as art director for the student magazine, Plated.

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RE: More than half of employees yell at their computers (survey)
Aerowind 20th Dec
@toddybottom Oddly enough, my wireless router is also the only thing I yell at. Of course, my father is another issue.
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I can bet %100 are Windows users. Hence Windows rules the enterprise.
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Not so
John L. Ries 19th Dec
@Return_of_the_jedi
This Linux user has been yelling at his computer no matter what OS it's running for many more years than he cares to admit.
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I work on all units
klumper Updated - 19th Dec
and I yell at them all, without exception or bias. I'm what they call an equal opportunity cursor provider. silly

Still haven't thrown one out the window, but Lord knows I've come close. You would too if you saw what hapless homo sapiens and assorted business personnel regularly do to them.
"four to 10 hours of work time are wasted each month due to problems with software"

On what planet??? In many cases 4 hours a week is a lot more accurate.

An interesting thing to note is that the headline is about "your computer" but the frustration is with the software. Particularly with Microsoft, it needs to stop worrying about adding more useless "features" and start making the useful features user friendly. (And, no, I've never used a Mac and although I have Linux I haven't found anything it can do better than Windows software. As for, "if you don't like it, use something else"--I do. I hardly use any MS products because they are so user-unfriendly.)
besides stuff MS writes.
All the MS software I've used at work performed well over the years. I've yelled at a few Dell desktop units due to flaws in motherboards for that particular batch of desktop products and I've been annoyed at network access speeds sometimes but nothing that prevented me from accomplishing my daily software tasks during my three decades of employment at a Fortune 500 company.
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I've yelled at Linux before
toddybottom 19th Dec
My wireless router is the only thing I've ever yelled at. It runs Linux. Of course.
@toddybottom Oddly enough, my wireless router is also the only thing I yell at. Of course, my father is another issue.
Does yelling at ZDnet's Talkback system count?

If so, then I'm guilty
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You're not alone
klumper 19th Dec
@UrNotPayingAttention

Here's my response to a related post of yours, in case you haven't seen it:
http://www.zdnet.com/tb/1-111178-2261552?

Hope Dignan, Grober, Howard-Sarin or some staff member (Marc Mendell?) with clout reviews it FWIW since Farber is long gone.
I yell at all of my installed operating systems (XP, 7 & Ubuntu).
My Fedora VM cops it too (the auto-updater is so stupid).

My friend has used Linux for over 10 years.
He's used Arch Linux for the last 3 or 4 years.
He yells at his computer too.

My main complaint with MS software is that functions are located in weird locations (even on the "Ribbon").
My main complaint with software in general is the uselessness of most "Help" systems.
You're always better off doing an Internet search.
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I've yelled at all my OSes from Mac to Unixes to Windows, but in my reckoning, 90% of the abuse has been against windows.
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Been fussing and cussing since 1968
rellis1949@... 19th Dec
I've yelled at computers since 1968. When in the Air Force, I used to climb on the file cabinets in the machine room and cuss the old B263 card system and the B3500 mainframe. Still fuss at the micro systems of today.

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