The screen came up clean. Desktop wallpaper. A clock in the corner. No music. No pings. No pop‑ups. No spinning beach ball.

She rebooted.

Her laptop’s fan spun up. The battery icon dropped from 98% to 91% in six minutes. Her morning was being eaten not by procrastination, but by things that opened themselves .

She mashed the close buttons. Each one spawned another. Spotify minimized to the system tray. Slack hid behind the clock. Discord camped out by the Wi‑Fi icon. The printer utility waved its little green checkmark like a smug flag.

She had downloaded Spotify to discover new music. Now it discovered new ways to launch itself. She installed Slack to talk to her team. Now it talked to her before she’d even had toast. The printer utility? She didn’t even own a printer anymore.

On Mac: System Settings → General → Login Items. There they were again, hiding like polite vampires. She selected them all with a single click and hit the minus button. They vanished. The system asked for her password. She typed it like a judge passing sentence.

And that printer utility? She deleted it an hour later. Felt even better.