Now let me preface this rant by saying I have truly enjoyed working at Microsoft for 10 years, and I appreciate the thought that went behind the 10yr Anniversary Gift I received. But having said that....

COME ON!!! I mean, seriously, look at this thing. To give you a better idea of what we are talking about, this hunk of glass (or sorry, designer crystal according to the packaging) stands about 18" tall and weighs at least 10 pounds. Seriously, I worked up a sweat caring it from my mail slot to my desk. And look at it - what the hell is it besides a shard of glass with my name laser etched on the base. Sure, the thought is nice, but really, do they seriously think anyone wants this thing.

Oh, I know there are the ego maniacs among us that like to decorate their cube or office with every little award, trinket, certification, etc. that they have ever received. That "kind" of worker would just love to add something like this to their collection. But for the rest of us, we just acknowledge the fact those "kind of people" really have poor decorating taste and no other interests in life besides work. Why else would you decorate your office/cube, where you spend a good part of your life, reminding you about nothing but WORK!?!?! You are already at WORK! Do you really need to reminder yourself of more WORK!?!!? WOW! For the rest of us, that award stuff is at best a dust collector, at worst, something you hope to be able to scratch the writing off of and sell for a buck at the next garage sale.

Which brings me to my point... why do companies give crap like this to their employees? I don't want a hunk of glass (though the Microsoft logo'ed static free cleaning hankie that came with it has turned out to be totally wicked at cleaning the display on my Palm Treo! - Rock On! Seriously, the thing came with its own logo'ed cleaning hankie - WTF?). That thing, considering it is supposedly by some famous artist and is limited edition, had to have cost $50 to $100 bucks. So why not give me a Best Buy gift certficate, or a gift certificate to a nice place for dinner, or maybe just cold, hard cash! Trust me, I would think much more often and much more fondly about my last ten years at Microsoft every time I listed to some CDs or watched a video that I had purchased at Best Buy with my 10 year anniversary gift certficate.