I would be thinking “It’s my fault for working for Microsoft, the management of which is a pathetic collection of criminals, dolts and wannabes”.

“[...] some employees might have also been underpaid their severance from the company, which also isn’t exactly exciting.”

It appears that Microsoft has spent so many years fudging its accounts that it no longer remembers how to do real book-keeping.

“The letter didn’t explain why the overpayment happened, just told previous employees how much money they owed Microsoft and how they could go about paying the company back. Pretty harsh.”

Harsh? This is *Microsoft* we’re talking about here – you know: convicted monopolist, chair-throwing CEO, “I’m going to f***ing kill Google” attitude. Do you think they see themselves as a charity or a benevolent society? It’s all about the the money, and Microsoft don’t give a rat’s a*** about anything or anyone else.

“The letters employees received did give them the number for Microsoft customer service to call if they had questions, although that number was closed for the weekend [...]”

Heh, heh. Microsoft are nothing if not consistent, and although they use the term “customer service”, they don’t have a clue what it means.

“[...] its funny that a company as technically savvy as Microsoft wouldn’t be able to handle something as easy clerically as handing out severance check.”

It would be funny if Microsoft were technically savvy – but, of course, it’s not (and it’s surprising that anyone could think that it is).

Do any of you have any predictions for 2010?

Sure. Microsoft will be running around like a headless chook (claiming, no doubt, to be “super-excited”). It will still be desperately trying to catch up to superior software offerings from its more agile rivals, but will be hamstrung by internal politics, by layers of management bloat, and by processes and procedures. We may see some cracks appearing as the realisation dawns that the monopoly has been milked dry. The cracks will take the form of an exodus of talented technical staff, and bickering and infighting amongst management as they try to agree on how to right the ship. The atmosphere at Redmond will become progressively more toxic as a result, and the internal ructions and divisions will increasingly become public knowledge as disaffected former employees speak out.