Money Players

CBS brought back the “Boss Button,” a special online feature on CBS’ “March Madness on Demand” that allows employees to conceal the fact they are not doing their jobs while sitting in front of their computer screens. Last year viewers clicked on the button 2.5 million times. This year the Boss Button is actually sponsored.

Here's how it works: You hear footsteps...you hit the "Boss Button" and the Madness stops. And a nifty-looking, although phony, spreadsheet instantly appears. Whew, that was a close call!

Our economy is in deep recession, bordering on depression. Record numbers of companies are going out of business or declaring bankruptcy. Unemployment is fast approaching 10%. Just what our economy needs: Online tools to help employees do less work and lose more money.

Yes, it’s a joke, but it’s really a short jump from hypothetical worker fraud to actual NCAA transgression. A few years ago, Oklahoma football players hit the figurative Boss Button at a no-show job provided by a booster. The real consequence? They got caught and were booted from the team. The moral: College athletes must do all the heavy lifting. Everyone else can just hit the Boss Button.

UPDATE: I got slammed by The Oregonian blogger, Ryan White, who clearly does not read this blog regularly to know that I sometimes jest. In case there are others who think I am insinuating that the Boss Button might actually cause the world to spin off its axis, please. I was poking fun at the NCAA: They want athletes to do all the work, but then make light of work for everyone else, especially if they are following the NCAA tournament.

Still, Ryan does make a good point:

Again, no one thinks you're really working when you hit the boss button, and if someone does, that someone is an idiot -- which, come to think of it, is how you get to be the boss in the first place.

--Marc Isenberg

“Ben Miles is all over Snoop’s stuff,” Miles said. “I found every guy around him is a former coach or player, and he runs a league of youth football and provides opportunities for young people. “I defend his music, and am much more a fan of the person.”

Snoop Dogg is a wonderful father, a great supporter youth football, a talented rapper, no doubt. He's also associated with some things that aren't typically held in high regard. Only in America, as Don King says.

College hoop fanatics slash lazy employees can rejoice: The "Boss Button," a feature on CBS Sportsline's March Madness on Demand that helps employees conceal the fact that they are not doing their jobs, is back by popular demand.

Originally posted March 18, 2007

For years employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas has put out estimates that March Madness costs businesses ridiculous money in lost productivity. The 2007 estimate is $1.2 billion.

Recognizing that not every college-basketball obsessed fan is equipped with a TV in their office, CBS created NCAA March Madness on Demand.

Problems: You want to watch college hoops, not work. CBS needs ratings. You don't want to get fired. Solution: CBS, with the NCAA's blessing plausible deniability, devised the "Boss Button."

Here's how it works: You hear footsteps...you hit the "Boss Button" and the Madness stops. And a nifty-looking, although phony, spreadsheet instantly appears. Whew, that was a close call!

CBS touts the worker fraud feature in a recent press release:

“Boss Button” — Back by popular demand, the “Boss Button” is the one feature every MMOD user in the workplace should know about. One click of the “Boss Button” and the live video action on the screen will be replaced by a silent readymade spread sheet!

What will they think of next? The "proctor button" for student athletes not interested in studying?

In this week's Sports Illustrated, Dan Patrick has a great exchange with Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl:

Patrick: [You] can't be putting your hands on Erin Andrews at halftime, coach.
Pearl: Erin is a terrific sideline reporter....I actually called her and texted her back, and I apologized if in any way that was unprofessional.
Patrick: Is texting her an NCAA violation?
Pearl: No, she's not a prospect.
Patrick: Oh, yes, she is.
Pearl: She's way out of my league when it comes to that category.

As in Erin's good looks matched up against Pearl's? Or as in he's old enough to be Erin's father?

The interview ends on a fascinating note:

Patrick: When was the last time you accidentally broke an NCAA rule?
Pearl: Probably sometime in this conversation.

This answer can be parsed two ways. One, Bruce Pearl is using simple logic: Time, say, 10 minutes has elapsed during this interview. Ergo, Pearl must have broken some rule in the War and Peace version of the NCAA Manual. Or, two, Pearl is referring to the Erin Andrews Rule, a little known bylaw recently passed by the NCAA that says that no coach will have impure thoughts about Erin and/or contemplate whether he is or isn't in her "category." Come on coach, show some institutional control!

I love Coach Pearl. Mostly because he doesn't take himself too seriously. And because when he was an Iowa assistant coach in the late 1980s, Pearl provided a glimpse into the sometimes seedy world of recruiting, which at the time was considered career suicide. (A great google find: the purported memo sent by Pearl to the NCAA alleging recruiting improprieties by Illinois.)

While on the subject of this week's SI, Grant Wahl writes a fantastic piece on Tyler Hansbrough, SI's college basketball player of the year. (Great summary of Psycho-T's game by Roy Williams: "It's like sumo wrestling followed by George Gervin's finger roll.") Last week, Grant wrote on what's wrong with college basketball. Answer: Abusive fans. Tyler Hansbrough represents everything that is right.