How to Alienate Your Employees in One Easy Lesson

I remember reading about this management practice before but I didn't remember that Microsoft was one of the companies using rank stacking, an amazingly misguided management methodology, IMO. Basically it means that no matter how good you are, and a company like Microsoft could attract a lot of very talented people, your manager just might get you fired because someone has to be put down as the least valuable employee by some criteria, any criteria. It doesn't really matter if everyone is good and everyone contributes value, the system demands it. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Danger, Jane & John Doe Computer User! Don't buy the retail copy of Office 2013.

PC World informs us that it is definitely true that if you buy a retail copy of Office 2013 instead of using Microsoft's "rental" system to acquire it is tied to the one computer forever. If the computer dies or you just need a new one with more capabilities your old copy is useless. You have to buy a new one. I think this is a rip off of the highest order no matter how badly Microsoft wants to switch from selling retail copies to perpetual leasing of their software if you want to use it. I think I'm going to tell everyone I know that buying a retail copy of Office 2013 is a very bad idea.