I'll just make a note of that

I have had my share of digs at Microsoft over the years. I keep trying to kick the habit - really, it's all down to will-power - but can you blame me for having another go when the following pops up on my Facebook feed?

If you don't know, the "Surface" referred to is a laptop computer but, as they say in one of my favourite films Airplane, that's not important right now. Let your mind boggle gently on the assertion that "Employees lose 76 hours a year looking for lost notes". It is so breathtakingly stupid that it deserves some serious analysis and could only have come from the same creative geniuses that gave us "The New Busy".

• The source of this information? Not given. 
• Who are these mysterious employees who spend so much time rummaging through filing cabinets, emptying waste-paper baskets and interrogating their innocent colleagues about who walked off with their precious scraps of paper? We don't know.
• Who do these people work for? What do they do? Does this "research" apply to farmers, bus-drivers, soldiers, shop assistants, factory workers, miners, coastguards, traffic wardens and TV comedians who present travel programmes? Or just to a few people who happen to work for Microsoft and who are unbelievably disorganised and poorly managed. (Sarcastic voice off: That would be the people responsible for Windows 10 updates, would it?)

This sort of stupid generalisation is neither true nor helpful. If it is meant to be some sort of average, then, given that "employees" has not been defined, it must apply to all employees worldwide. Which, given that the vast majority probably do not do much in the way of making notes (see some of the examples of occupations listed above) suggests that a small number spend an amazing amount of time scratching their heads and pondering why the Post-It they carefully stuck on their computer monitor is no longer there - hundreds if not thousands of hours a year. How on earth do they hold down their jobs? How did they get them in the first place? - Surely they would never have made it to the interview because they would have lost the note telling them where to go.

Perhaps the next advertisement could include the following.  Every statement is verified by the Ramblings Research Institute and absolutely not made up, honest.

• Employees spend 93 hours a year watching their computers boot up, display little blue circular things to indicate that the processor is too busy doing something else than to accept any commands from you and reading security updates that merely redirect them to webpages containing pages of endless gobbledegook about "security issues being addressed".
• Employees spend a further 35 hours a year reinstalling drivers that the latest Windows update has uninstalled, calling IT Support to find out why their network connectivity has gone down and throwing coffee mugs at the screens at yet another message asking them if they wish to trust a printer.
• Some employees waste an astonishing 114 hours and 18 minutes a year reading, gawping at and finally reacting with contumely to moronic advertisements by certain large firms who, unable to explain why we should buy their products clearly and simply, resort to invention and misinformation.