Matthew Bellamy of the Rock group Muse had an earlier career where he worked at the help desk of an Information Technology company.

As part of "first tier" support, he responded to complaints about lost or forgotten passwords, machines that would not boot because they were not turned on or plugged in, people who just wanted to complain in general about monitors that were too small, mouse pads that were missing, keyboards that would not work because people had dropped food in them, and PCs that were too slow for the games that people had illegally uploaded and wanted to play on them while they worked.

Bellamy was instructed by his supervisors to generally lock people out of their PCs and prevent them, basically, from doing anything. This is generally the way IT departments operate. Those who complained were given fewer permissions, and ultimately, banned from the network or slowed to the point where they were not effective in performing their jobs. Bellamy usually spent a typical day reading other people's e-mail, especially ones sent by recruiters from other companies who offered his co-workers better or higher paying jobs.

Bellamy found out through the grapevine that his company was going to outsource his job and most of the other jobs of his coworkers. Frustrated and angry, he grabbed his guitar (which just happened to be lying nearby), and composed this song, which was initially rejected by his producers. Matt was eventually let go by his company, so he had time to rework the song lyrics, and it became a smashing success.