The cursor hovers, shaking just a tiny bit, over a button labeled ‘Initiate Request 2.0.2’. It’s an almost perfect replica of a button from 1998, complete with a bevel that looks like it was rendered in 256 colors. You’ve been here before. Hours ago, it felt like. You’re just trying to approve a $12 coffee expense, the kind of trivial amount that feels insulting to spend this much mental energy on. You’ve already navigated 12 screens, each requiring 2 specific data entries, then another 2 dropdowns, each with 22 options, before landing on this final, menacing ‘Initiate Request’ button.

For most people, this mundane struggle is a daily reality. The frustration isn’t merely inconvenient; it’s a constant, low-grade hum of disrespect. Why does it take 17 clicks to report a $12 coffee? Because your convenience isn’t a feature on the checklist of the people who bought the software. Your time, your mental energy, your simple desire to get on with your actual job – these are not design priorities. The software wasn’t built for you, the end-user, the person living inside the system for 8 to 12 hours a day. It was built for the buyer, typically a manager with a budget and a checklist, and the compliance officer, whose primary directive is to mitigate risk, often at the expense of human fluidity. The more steps, the more approvals, the more forms with 22 mandatory fields, the ‘safer’ it feels, even if it creates an operational nightmare for 2,222 employees.

The Design of Disrespect

I remember an incident, years ago, trying to reconcile a travel expense for a 2-day conference. The system, a relic from the early 2000s, crashed after every 2nd field entry. I’d fill in the dates, then the location, and then *poof*, white screen. I must have restarted that process 22 times. In my frustration, I briefly thought, ‘Maybe if I just enter *something* random, it’ll pass.’ It didn’t. Instead, it flagged my expense, requiring 2 weeks of back-and-forth emails. A simple error, my system-induced despair, led to weeks of administrative overhead. I once believed these systems were simply poorly programmed. A mistake, I now realize. They aren’t poor by accident; they are poor by design – a design driven by a different set of metrics entirely.

Consider Aisha C.-P., a neon sign technician. Aisha spends her days bending glass, heating it to precise temperatures, and coaxing gas into vibrant, luminous forms. Her work demands precision, immediate feedback, and an intuitive understanding of materials. There’s a direct, physical consequence to every action she takes. If the glass isn’t heated correctly, it breaks. If the gas mixture is off, the sign flickers or doesn’t light at all. This hands-on, tangible world stands in stark contrast to her quarterly ritual: updating her project hours in the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. She once described it to me as trying to sculpt fog with a sledgehammer. Every dropdown menu feels like a trap, every mandatory field a personal affront. “It asks for ‘client engagement duration in fiscal quarters 2 and 22,'” she lamented, “when all I did was spend 2 hours fixing Mrs. Henderson’s ‘OPEN’ sign. Does it really need a 22-digit project code?”

The Metrics of Misery

The profound lack of empathy in enterprise tool design communicates a clear, if often unspoken, message to employees: your time is worthless, and your frustration is irrelevant. This isn’t a conspiracy; it’s an unfortunate byproduct of organizational hierarchies and risk aversion. The individual user, often low on the totem pole, has minimal power to influence software procurement. The manager who signs off on the multimillion-dollar software package rarely, if ever, uses it for daily tasks. They see bullet points: “Enhanced Compliance Tracking 2.2,” “Streamlined Reporting Capabilities 2.0,” “22-Factor Security Integration.” They don’t see the 22 minutes wasted by Aisha every time she needs to log her hours, multiplied across 2,222 employees. That’s a staggering amount of lost productivity and, more importantly, lost morale.

This isn’t to say compliance or security aren’t important; they absolutely are. But the balance is wildly skewed. It’s possible to build systems that prioritize both. Systems that offer a smooth, intuitive experience while meeting regulatory requirements. It requires a fundamental shift in perspective, moving from a ‘check-the-box’ mentality to a ‘solve-the-human-problem’ mentality. It means involving the actual users in the design process, observing their pain points, and iterating based on their feedback. It means understanding that friction in a system is friction in a person’s day.

The Ripple Effect

The ripple effect of this widespread frustration is tangible. Employees become disengaged, prone to errors, and develop workarounds that can, ironically, introduce new compliance risks. It fosters an environment where people dread interacting with internal systems, viewing them as obstacles rather than tools. In an era where user experience dictates success in consumer products, it’s baffling how often businesses settle for interfaces that actively hinder their own employees. There’s an emerging understanding that this doesn’t have to be the norm. Companies are beginning to differentiate themselves by offering high-performance, bug-free, and delightful user experiences, recognizing that employee satisfaction directly impacts overall productivity and innovation. For instance, platforms that commit to a truly smooth, bug-free, high-performance user experience, like Playtruco demonstrate a recognition that a well-designed tool isn’t just a nicety; it’s a strategic advantage.

I was once adamant that if a system was bad, it was purely the fault of the engineers. My perspective has shifted, just like the contents of my fridge that I keep checking, hoping for something new. I realize now that engineers often build to specifications given by non-engineers, who are themselves driven by non-user-centric mandates. It’s a systemic issue, a complex web of incentives where the lowest common denominator of ‘functionality’ often trumps ‘usability.’ We accept these atrocities because ‘that’s just how enterprise software is.’ But that acceptance is precisely what perpetuates the problem. What if we stopped accepting it?

The Demand for Respect

What if we started demanding that our internal tools show the same respect for our time and intelligence as the apps we use to order a $2 coffee? What if we understood that a 22-step process to perform a 2-click task isn’t just an inefficiency, but a quiet act of sabotage against the very people who power the enterprise?

This persistent friction isn’t just annoying; it’s a subtle form of sabotage against the very people who drive the enterprise forward. It’s time to demand better.