Why does IT ask me to reboot my machine when encountering an issue?

Often when working with an end user on an issue, I will sometimes request the user reboot their computer, and more often than not am met with a frustrated sigh.  While I understand your frustration completely, and realize you would simply like to get back  to work, there is a reason behind this request.  That reason is rather eloquently explained in the article linked below.

To illustrate why rebooting can fix so many problems, let’s take a look at the ultimate software problem a Windows computer can face: Windows halts, showing a blue screen of death. The blue screen was caused by a low-level error, likely a problem with a hardware driver or a hardware malfunction. Windows reaches a state where it doesn’t know how to recover, so it halts, shows a blue-screen of death, gathers information about the problem, and automatically restarts the computer for you . This restart fixes the blue screen of death.

Reboots don't fix everything, but they are an excellent early step in the troubleshooting process!