Yeah you can tell that to HR on your exit interview after they fire you for substandard work. Don't be more of an ass than the manager. The manager is simply wrong but guess what, he/she is an ass and unfortunately you have to abide by their decision unless someone above is willing to countermand that decision. That is the way I work.

Start at the top and work down, present some valid published research to support your point. You cannot use your work as an example since that's an obvious conflict of interest and you will of course make the numbers work to support what you want. Make sure you remain anonymous and that if you are successful with this tactic keep quiet about it.

As for me, I have the TV on all day. When I'm busy and engrossed in my work, I might see the start of a show and then the credits rolling at the end.

You never know. Perhaps they are being funded by the very ones they are suing to establish some precedent. For sure it's at the very least the cheapest global advertising you can get even if it never goes to trial or they simply drop it. You pay the couple of hundred dollars or less it costs to file and they get 100's of thousands or more of free publicity.

That's an incredibly ridiculous example. There are dozens of generic plumbers, electricians, etc that are available and you as the consumer have a choice just as they do. They can decline your offer to employ them for no reason at all because they generally have enough work since they usually have 1000s of potential employers. You ever work with these people. We'll be there tomorrow, no show, BS excuse, Tuesday no show, had an emergency, etc.

This guys position is absolutely nothing like that. My scenario is simple, you call me off hours, that's a 1/2 day minimum because chances are you interrupted my sleep, interrupted my weekend or interrupted my vacation. You didn't have to pay someone to work those hours while I'm not there so that's your savings. Large companies employ people around the world for coverage or have 2nd and 3rd shifts. Small companies can simply pay someone a major premium for a rare occurrence instead of employing extra personnel. You can use your imagination how often I get called. Practically never. Those critical problems suddenly become not so critical.

Plain and simple money grab attempt. Shame on these "officials". How about more concern about the victim?

Make an attempt to switch them over to free for commercial use products as mentioned (e.g. 7-Zip, whatever free PDF software). That might get them into the mood to switch over to more FOSS or pay for licenses once it's shown to be a success. Then ask "what should we do with the remainder of the license issues" that they are more hesitant to switch from (e.g. Office) pointing out that a disgruntled employee or ex-employee could turn them in for a bounty. You want to appear that you are helping them to avoid a potentially huge fine. They will either go along with it or possibly fire you. If they fire you drop a dime and collect additional unemployment benefits.

A gross insult to people who actually deserved the award. This guy went from a nothing to the president of the United States and has DELIVERED nothing but scripted speeches. People who actually did things for years or lifetimes were passed over because the "potential" is there that this guy MIGHT deliver something. Another group pandering to Hollywood. My disgust has reached a new level.

Many good points particularly the "fatal wound" comments. I've found it useful to have your internal clients do your dirty work as well. Sometimes your boss' boss is clueless or unaware of the ineptness of your boss and you need others to perform that function for you. Mind you every effort should be made to do things the right way (good karma) before resorting to this. Sadly being nice, helping people do their job, etc frequently accomplishes nothing.

Here's the story I love repeating. We had a "boss" that was thrust upon us one afternoon when my colleague was told he would run the project that morning. We had the expertise in the project, this guy was being unloaded from somewhere else and landed on us. We tried to get along but the guy was a total loser. Every meeting he had with others would result in a change of plans which of course we would have to re-document. At one point it cycled back to the original plan and then with the next meeting another change of plans where we decided enough was enough. We refused to make any more changes. It was a Friday and after stating "But, I'm the boss" he said take the rest of the day off and let's start fresh on Monday. After all of his crap and many beers it was deemed time to eliminate him.

Our first opportunity (his own fault) was during a large meeting. My colleague professionally offered to present because after all we were the experts. The boss, of course, said he'll do it. Within a few minutes he was getting questions (due to his utter lack of knowledge) from the group. He would re-present the question ineptly to us (we were in the meeting) and our responses were "we're not sure what you're asking for Joe" or "we're not sure what you are referring to Joe". We, of course, commented to the attendees afterward about how well the meeting went.

Our last effort was a couple of days before his vacation. We intentionally kept the documentation without page numbers and shuffled. He asked us if we had read anything good lately (surprising since he had seen a copy of "How to Fire your Boss" on one our desks a couple of weeks earlier). Then he asked if he could get a copy of the document to read. As we predicted that night he put page numbers on it, a cover page with only his name on it and distributed it the next day before leaving early. Later that day we went around distributing our properly titled, order and paginated document to everyone. Each person asked what it was that Joe had distributed. We advised them to read it (or try to) and then read ours.

Joe was fired a couple of months later on Christmas Eve but after both of us had transferred leaving the project with no expertise for the effort.