When you are working on a complex machine, or maybe even a simple device like a bicycle, its ability to thwart you repeatedly, despite your persistent efforts, feels like you are struggling against the stubborn will of another person.
Machines seem to possess a will: a determined antagonistic force that requires arcane psychological voodoo to overcome.
To get your way and coax the cantankerous machine to abide by your control (temporarily) requires an affinity that finds life in the inanimate: a gremlin or golem soul invested in the stuttering steel to whom relational attunement cedes benefit.