While Windows 8 is hailed as the Apple-leapfrogging future by pundits desperate for a horse race, it looks like things might not be all mochas and whipped cream up in the top left corner of the United States, where the Sasquatch roam, and where even more annoying beasts yell “Developers! Developers!”
The Seattle PI’s Nick Eaton notes:
At Microsoft’s company meeting on Friday, CEO Steve Ballmer didn’t do his famous monkey dance…
That is terribly insulting. Disgraceful. The PI should issue an immediate apology. The Macalope knows several monkeys and they are all much better dancers than Ballmer. Frankly, he knows gelatinous cubes that are better dancers.
…he didn’t shout “I love this company” and, when he did speak, many of his employees started emptying out of their Safeco Field seats.
Awk. Ward.
This all a production of Anecdote Theater, though, as it comes from comments on Mini-Microsoft, the notorious Microsoft insider blog. At best these fall into the “according to online accounts…” category.
And Ballmer’s poor rating on Glassdoor.com?
Microsoft employees, it seems, also may not be Ballmer’s biggest fans. Glassdoor.com, which rates companies based on user feedback, reports that 55 percent of employees disapprove of Ballmer and 45 percent approve. And the reactions from Friday’s company meeting weren’t all that positive.
Well, Glassdoor’s rating is subject to self-selection bias like any online poll, including the one at the bottom of the PI piece that has 81 percent of respondents saying Ballmer is no longer the right person to lead Microsoft. Meaningless, really. None of it’s scientific. Maybe that 81 percent is all Mac users. Or insulted monkeys. Or insulted Mac-using heyyyyyy…
We may feel Ballmer’s poor performance is objectively true, but these results don’t say anything about sentiment at Microsoft about him or amongst online readers of defunct print publications. Or monkeys.
What the Macalope can say is that if he were working at Microsoft… Actually, he can’t even say that because it’s so patently absurd. With a head like this? Come on. Not even in the Mac division. And look at these antlers. And these legs.
Not that they have anything to do with working at Microsoft. They’re just fantastic.
Anyway, where were we?
[Editors’ Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]