What is it with Geeks and Machines?

I know everyone knows that the IT department has special abilities when it comes to machines, but what I have experienced lately borders on the Twilight Zone.  How is it that an IT person walks in a room and every machine seems to stand up straighter and work faster/harder?
Example:  the Server is down one morning so a few of us lowly non-IT folks go up to “reboot” it.  We mash the big blue button, wait the allotted few seconds and mash the big blue button again.  Guess what?  NOTHING!  So, we call the BOUV and he walks us through the EXACT same steps we had just completed and somehow it now worked…go figure!
That’s a pretty standard example.  For some unknown reason the server responded appropriately once we had the Geek-in-Charge on the phone.  It’s like the server knew.  But here are the 2 really freaky examples:
Yesterday, I was speaking with our traffic manager and the entire phone system goes down.  Right about then, the BOUV walks in the door.  Just as we are about to tell him the phone system is down, the phone squawks and starts to work again…weird right?  About an hour later, I am struggling with upgrades and memory issues with my computer.  Finally, I give up and call the BOUV, but alas he has already left for the day.  But the simple act of attempting to reach IT has made my computer sit up and take notice…insert Twilight music here!
So, can anyone tell me?  What is it with machines and GEEKS?  Is there some sort of machine magnetism?