I must have misspoke or I'm just not the writer I used to be because this is exactly the opposite of what hundreds of warehouse and shop people have said about me for over 40 years. (about 10% of that work is mentioned here: edweissman.com)

Why is this bad?

Because NO ONE is working the real problem (which is certainly not changing report orientation to leave enough white space for "out of the ERP system" notes). Everyone's dancing around it with semantics, jerry rigs, and workarounds. I.T. should be a trusted business partner. And unsupported's management should be putting them in a position to work the real problem. Instead, they're just another nerd who should shut up, put in a meaningless fix, and stop threatening their managers.

I have worked on warehouses and it is complicated.

Agreed. All the more reason to find out what notes they're adding to reports. Mission critical "notes" outside the system is a giant red flag. I'd rather work the red flag than make people happy. If it's important enough to put on a packing slip, it's probably important enough to be part of the system of record. A good old VSM should identify that and reduce that complication.