Spinning beach balls of death

In the newspaper world, we work on Mac computers. No matter where you work, everyone has shared a similar experience: The spinning beach ball of death (cue the orchestra!). You innocently try to save a file, or type some, or perhaps flow something into a layout and BAM — that happy little multicolored wheel pops up in front of you and spins. Then spins some more. And continues to spin. A curious thing happens to you as the spinning goes on. No, you don't become hypnotized, which might be a nice distraction. Instead, you start to feel the temperature rising. Your face will most likely become flushed. Your eyes narrow. Your jaw clenches, teeth grind and gnash. And that little f*@#ing wheel just keeps spinning like something out of Willy Wonkaland until finally you can't take it anymore! You've had enough of this! NO MORE SPINNING WHEEL! So you hold down the option key and click on the program and select "Force Quit." Only, sometimes it doesn't work. MY GOD! HOW CAN IT NOT WORK? Exhausted and depressed, most likely looking forward to redoing a whole morning of work, you slam your head down on the keyboard, hoping maybe one of the keys will pop out and poke y0u in the eye so you can't see that damnable beach ball anymore. Of course, your forehead magically selects the correct series of keys, the program unfreezes and you are forced to go back to actually working. Maybe you should have just let the beach ball spin.