Superheroes don't wear capes they wear sensible jumpers - why I feel sorry for the IT crowd

They say superheroes don't wear capes, but in the newsroom they are long-suffering, generally wear jeans  and a sensible much-loved jumper but quietly keep the operation ticking over, even in times of crisis.
IT stressIT stress
IT stress

Yes, I’m talking about IT, the people who generally sort out every problem in the world by telling you to turn it off and on again (it works nine times out of 10, people) and are often the butt of frustrations when modern technology thinks it knows better than fat-thumbed humans.

There is nothing that makes us modern workers more angry than a blue wheel of doom suspended mid-way through our screens - well I say nothing but ‘the server is not responding’ is also up there as well as a printer which will not print.

It has one job, right.

IT stressIT stress
IT stress
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So you have to feel for all those IT wizards out there at the end of the phone (if they are working... which was also a problem for us this week) when crisis hits the usually mild-mannered occupant of an office.

In a newsroom, stress-levels can rise rather steeply when technical meltdown handily combines with ever-present newspaper deadlines and a breaking news story that would really probably be more informative uploaded to the website now than say, perhaps, next week.

Journalists are not known for their patient natures and quiet suffering (though we really are rather more lovely than you think, all) but when you are under pressure from an editor, nobody is returning your calls AND your computer is only allowing you to type the letters B and H while loudly emitting the audio from a website ad, they tend to bellow the missing words out at the top of their voice.

The air gets blue and that is not generally much help to a computer system cracking unde r the pressure of heavy-handed keyboard bashers, carelessly flung coffee. cake crumbs and the grinding cycle of breaking news.

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But the biggest issue is that nobody in an office ever wants to hear that they are doing something wrong - they say a bad worker blames his or her tools but in the land of work, it really helps with collective mindset to blame IT.

Like I say, they are the underestimated superheroes.

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