by Tim Moran

Ever get so frustrated with your creaky old computer that you've considered breaking the thing, so the company will finally issue you a new one?

You are not alone.

Only about 40 percent of companies complete their scheduled technology upgrades on time, according to recent report from Mozy research, which surveyed 600 IT managers and 3,000 employees across the UK, France, and Germany.

Delayed technology refresh cycles lead four workers in ten to say that their aging computers make them less efficient and effective because of, among other things, crashes and lost data. According to the survey, the average UK workplace computer is about two years past its prime (5+ years old), making it twice as old as the average computer used in Germany (2.7 years).

Some of the workers using antediluvian devices are mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore: Bring out the hammers!

One in four office workers, it seems, reckons that the best way to get a new work computer is to take matters into their own hands by taking a hammer to their Toshiba and smashing it up. A quarter of the workers surveyed, in fact, think that "bending the rules" (although "breaking the rules" seems more accurate) is the fastest way to get a new device; 13 per cent said that deliberately smashing a laptop is the best route to get a new computer from the company that works properly.

Curiously, the French seemed most likely to resort to smashing the bejeebers out of their office PC as the quickest way to get an upgrade. The majority of Germans trusted their bosses to get them an upgrade when the time was right. Go figure. Here's the clincher, though, and something worth considering right here by U.S. enterprise IT shops: Surveyed employees who reported that their work computer was older than their home computer were twice as likely to think that breaking the office machine was the best way to get an upgrade out of their employer.

How's your tech upgrade looking? If you see any employees furtively walking the halls with either a ball peen or a stale baguette, it might be time for nice, new machines all around.