This article is more than 1 year old

Half of users attack their PCs

IT rage reaches epidemic proportions in UK

Updated Eagle-eyed Register readers may have come across this story last Friday. Well, we liked it so much we thought we'd dust it off and re-publish it. Last week this one caused a bot of a stir, when the Spin Doctors behind this story sent it to us a full week ahead of the embargo. Well, we don't do embargoes anyway but here it is again... They make Northerners swear, turn financiers into bullies and make workers in manufacturing feel stupid. The humble PC has a lot to answer for, according to a Mori survey entitled Rage Against The Machine. IT anger cost UK businesses the equivalent of £25,000 per person per year. The research, carried out for Compaq, claims four out of five respondents have seen colleagues vent frustration at their PCs. Out of the 1250 UK workers questioned, more than half had been on the verge of fisticuffs with their IT systems. Here at The Register we have a video clip of someone attacking their PC. If you want to see it, email our editor Sean Fleming. Nearly half felt frustrated or stressed by the amount of time taken to solving IT problems. Swearing at monitors was popular with the quarter of users who suffered daily problems with their machines. Two in five blamed techie jargon for exacerbating the issue. But the research possibly brings out the true characteristics of the sectors interviewed. Public sector workers were most likely to walk away from a problematic machine and refuse to deal with it. 62 per cent of respondents in the North regularly found themselves effing and jeffing at their PCs, and a fifth of those working in the financial services sector admitted bullying their IT manager when things went wrong. The young fared worse than the old, with more than a sixth of under 25-year-olds taking IT aggression out on someone or something else. One in three over the age of 55 blamed themselves for their IT problems. ® See also Users smash up PCs in outbreaks of network rage

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