Programmer Humor

You know how slackers tend to make more of an effort to at least look like they're doing what they should be when the boss walks by?

This is the same relationship between the computers and the IT department.

And the real truth may be somewhere in between. The user may suddenly regulate their behaviour and take extra care, or at least act sufficiently differently, when the IT person is watching over their shoulder.

They don't do the thing that makes the computer complain. Everything looks normal. IT person goes away. User reverts to original habits. Computer complains.

Or else the IT person uses the computer themselves, but does not emulate the user sufficiently well, so the computer behaves.

I know it's not always this but it goes a long way to explaining how tech aura became a thing.