Okay, we know this is the sort of thing better suited for Wildly Off-Topic Microsoft-Bashing Day, but it showed up on Saturday, see, and we really don't think it'll keep for a week, so you're getting it now. Frankly, you should be thankful; Friday on Tuesday? It's like pennies from heaven. Better, actually-- the whole pennies thing never made much sense to us, since if they're falling from heaven, by the time they reach the planet's surface they're probably moving fast enough to punch straight through someone's skull. And even if you do manage to catch one without suffering a fatal or crippling injury, it's still only worth, like, a penny. Seriously, think about it. Pennies from heaven should be one of the biblical plagues or something.

Wait. Were we talking about something?

Oh, the Microsoft thing! Right. Okay, well, it's like this: you know how Microsoft is famous for being a really good company to work for if you have no life (and arguably no soul, but that's apparently still up for debate)? In other words, you get a great salary and a stellar benefits package in return for more or less never going home, which for some people is just fine and dandy-- live in the office, save on rent. Anyway, according to Reuters, Microsoft just cut employee benefits-- not in any terribly drastic way, like replacing health care coverage with a poorly-dubbed VHS tape of Animal Planet's Emergency Vets or anything like that, but enough stuff got changed that the natives are getting restless.

While employees still get free health care, free gym memberships, and all the frosty beverages their kidneys can handle, they'll also have to pay only 10% below market value when buying company stock, as opposed to the previous 15%. Worse yet, while they used to have up to a year after the birth or adoption of a lil' sprout to take their four weeks of paid parental leave, now they have to do it within six months. And get this: their health plan now requires that they buy generic prescription drugs, just like common peasants. The nerve. It's no surprise, then, that an informal intranet poll of the staff showed that nearly 75% of the employees were "very dissatisfied" with the changes.

Okay, yeah, that could have been sarcasm-- but in light of the pile of cash Microsoft is sitting on, we're actually kind of serious. See, here's the part we don't get: trimming operating costs is all well and good if there's actual waste and inefficiency that can be corrected, but why the fuzzy heckykins is Microsoft making three-quarters of its workforce "very dissatisfied" by cutting their benefits just to save $80 million this year, when the company has $56 billion in the bank? Since Microsoft makes (wait for it) software, one would think that a happy team of code jockeys is its only essential asset; crank out the code, dupe it a zillion times, make insane profit margins on volume sales. We dunno, it just seems unwise to disgruntlefy the folks in the trenches.

Honestly, $56 billion. And only 55,000 employees. Sheesh, forget saving the $80 million, guys; be smart and give the workers what they want. And spend a piddling 1/1000th of your cash on hand to buy 'em each a goofy electric scooter or something. You have to invest in the workforce, because when all you make is software (more or less), the workforce is everything.

Oh, wait-- we don't like Microsoft, do we? And we want it to fail?

Right. Um...

So, yeah-- trimming unnecessary employee benefits to cut operating expenses! That's the winning strategy that'll get Longhorn done on time and bug-free, you betcha. Why, we can hardly wait to see it!