Why IT Doesn't Want Us to Be Great as Employees

They steal every bit of happiness from us throughout the workday and wonder why we do not want any communication from them, even when we need them the most.

AI-Generated Image: A Black woman with locs, sitting at her desk, in front of a computer, frustrated with the wallpaper.

One generic wallpaper for every employee.

As I was reviewing my confirmation list for the MRI and CT patients to call on Friday, October 03, 2025, for Monday, October 06, 2025, I noticed my wallpaper had changed once again. It reverted to the aubergine background with white writing for our organization. Boring. Bland. Basic.

I sighed and went to my settings, where I collected the images I selected the day before and the day before that, and saved these new settings once again.

New wallpaper? Check. New images for the screensaver? Check. A vibrant autumn theme that makes my heart flutter? Check.

I like to feel apart from everyone else when it comes to my monitors and the images shared with me throughout my workday. If I have to be there 8-12 hours, I need something to view that lifts my spirits and also keeps me from getting bored. The basic wallpaper for our organization and its accompanying screensavers irk me to no end.

Every time I try to spice it up now, the Powers That Be for our administration’s IT Team pull that joy away from me by the end of the day. When I first began this role, I had a puppies theme, complete with screensavers and cutesy wootsie wallpaper, too. I didn’t have to change this nearly as much. Maybe once every week. Now… Now, I am flipping from these basic settings to the customizable themes I want every day.

Someone in IT has locked my organization settings or has given me limited access, and I am lightweight salty about this. The type of wallpaper I have will not deter me from doing my job. What I select as a slideshow for screensavers does not push me to fall into some sort of trance that will keep me from daily tasks. If I am not bothering anyone, why does it matter if I do not want to be a team player with that funky organization wallpaper and company-themed screensavers?

I am not downloading viruses onto company computers, and I know what to search for and how to select “safe images.”

As soon as I noticed my settings had been limited, I heard my coworker sigh heavily in the cubicle next to me. I braced myself for whatever was coming because if she was sighing, surely a rant would follow.

Your email settings belong to us now, too.

“Tre! Good morning! Good morning, Tre! Do you have a moment to come here and check something?” My coworker was frustrated, and I sensed the lack of coffee in her voice, so I knew if I did not get up and assess whatever situation she had going on, we were not in for a good workday.

I donned my helpful face, adjusted my “I Got You” voice, and hustled to her personal space.

“What’s up, lady? What’s going on?” Frantically, my coworker explained that she could no longer adjust the settings to keep her logged into her email for the entire day. She explained that every ten minutes, the system was booting her out of it. Perplexed, I asked if I could sit at her desk and looked at her email options, and I quickly noticed she was using Outlook via the browser, instead of the app. No biggie, we could fix that in two shakes, right?

W R O N G!

Every time I tried to get her access to the app, the system was telling me she could not use Microsoft Outlook in the app. When I explained this to her, she realized she had these details written down somewhere else, and she searched for that piece of paper and quickly read to me the details from the IT representative who assisted her with trying to add the app before, and simply told her to “Just use the browser for access” when he couldn’t figure it out.