Are you stuck in a bad relationship ... with your GIS? You need help, you need out. Call the Cleaner.
In all seriousness, time and time again, our professional services team has encountered potential clients that are just stuck using some antiquated version of ArcGIS or burdened by some legacy vendor because "That's the way we've always done it". Like that friend looking at the relationship from the outside, it is blatantly obvious that you should cut the cord and move on. Stockholm Syndrome seems to work in professional environments too. You feel it would be disloyal to expect more from your software or vendor. You may feel backed into a corner because you were told you 'Just don't understand the complexities of the software'. Or most nefarious of all, someone has made you believe that you cannot do your job any other way.
There is a brighter future.
When properly implemented, the ArcGIS Platform is used by thousands of GIS Technicians and Administrative Assistants alike in local governments across the country. We each have a different role and need of GIS. There should be no expectation that the Planning Director needs to administer maintenance on a database, Or that the surveyor updates the assessment fields of a new house.
We work with our clients to empower them. Not to 'DO GIS' but rather to do their given job* easier by using GIS as a tool.
A Geographic Information System is Not the End-Product.
It is the pathway to the end product.
Hopefully, for you it is something you use to do you job well. If you are stuck in a co-depentent relationship with your GIS. please contact us. We'd like to have a conversation.
* Sometimes GIS is a person's Job. For those people we have been there, literally. We want to help you right-size your entire GIS enterprise.