March (Crawl) Madness!
My employer’s Internet access today has slowed to a crawl – it’s barely functioning. Why? Well, it’s not your typical IT crash or a virus in the network. And the two squirrels on the treadmill haven't run out of energy, either. Nope, it‘s an entirely different type of bug that’s causing all the headaches:
March Madness.
Yes, our entire company’s infrastructure has returned to the Stone Age because a bunch of sales bozos are hogging all the bandwidth to watch college basketball online.
Now, I know that I’m not one to call the kettle black – I’m admittedly blogging across their network, but at the same time I’m not tying up our limited resources by watching basketball on my monitor. I’ll post this rant, then move on with my life. The Neanderthals down the hall will spend the next 8 hours drooling as their mind slowly turns to mush as they watch a bunch of 19 year old kids from schools they’ll never attend run up and down the court. Yawn.
I don’t get the whole March Madness thing. Perhaps it’s because I’m not a huge sports fan, and perhaps it’s because I’ve got better things to piss away my time on than trying to predict which of the 64 lucky teams will make it to the finals. But mainly it’s because I JUST DON’T CARE.
Quick – name the final tour teams from last year, and who they defeated to get to that position. If you can, congratulations! You just earned a free pass to go outside and get some fresh air. Lucky you. You deserve it.
But March Madness is big business around here – if you’re into placing under-the-table wagers, that is. A few years ago a huge betting ring was being ran out of my department (before the massive layoffs chopped about 92% of the staff), and you should have seen the amount of money that was trading hands. It was remarkable; these guys who bitch over having to pay an extra dime when the Coke machine prices go up were dropping $50, $100 a game.
And it's all anyone will talk about for three weeks – brackets, rankings, seeds, divisions, bubbles – if they’d put that much effort and dedication into their work, maybe we’d still be profitable, you think?
I know people who’ve purposely taken vacation days today and tomorrow to stay home and watch college basketball all day (and night). And you just know that when they come back to work on Monday, after four solid days of listening to shoes squeaking on the floor, it’ll be ugly. Bloodshot eyes, expanded beer guts, little pieces of Cheeto-s stuck to their unshaven faces. Yep, that’s a good time.
Me? I’d rather take the Lovely Mrs. G. to a vacation hotspot (outside of Iowa, for those of you who think that “vacation hotspots” are nearby) than spend four days sitting on the couch as my cerebral cortex slowly dissolves. Spending time outdoors with your lovely bride is a much better way to burn off a day, and it sure beats losing your mortgage money betting on some college freshman’s free throw abilities.
So with any luck our network will be back up soon, the sports sites will be blocked (IT usually locks out anything sports-related this time of year – gee, wonder why?), and people will return to doing what they actually get paid to do.
Blogging.
Oh. And other stuff, too. Yeah.
March Madness.
Yes, our entire company’s infrastructure has returned to the Stone Age because a bunch of sales bozos are hogging all the bandwidth to watch college basketball online.
Now, I know that I’m not one to call the kettle black – I’m admittedly blogging across their network, but at the same time I’m not tying up our limited resources by watching basketball on my monitor. I’ll post this rant, then move on with my life. The Neanderthals down the hall will spend the next 8 hours drooling as their mind slowly turns to mush as they watch a bunch of 19 year old kids from schools they’ll never attend run up and down the court. Yawn.
I don’t get the whole March Madness thing. Perhaps it’s because I’m not a huge sports fan, and perhaps it’s because I’ve got better things to piss away my time on than trying to predict which of the 64 lucky teams will make it to the finals. But mainly it’s because I JUST DON’T CARE.
Quick – name the final tour teams from last year, and who they defeated to get to that position. If you can, congratulations! You just earned a free pass to go outside and get some fresh air. Lucky you. You deserve it.
But March Madness is big business around here – if you’re into placing under-the-table wagers, that is. A few years ago a huge betting ring was being ran out of my department (before the massive layoffs chopped about 92% of the staff), and you should have seen the amount of money that was trading hands. It was remarkable; these guys who bitch over having to pay an extra dime when the Coke machine prices go up were dropping $50, $100 a game.
And it's all anyone will talk about for three weeks – brackets, rankings, seeds, divisions, bubbles – if they’d put that much effort and dedication into their work, maybe we’d still be profitable, you think?
I know people who’ve purposely taken vacation days today and tomorrow to stay home and watch college basketball all day (and night). And you just know that when they come back to work on Monday, after four solid days of listening to shoes squeaking on the floor, it’ll be ugly. Bloodshot eyes, expanded beer guts, little pieces of Cheeto-s stuck to their unshaven faces. Yep, that’s a good time.
Me? I’d rather take the Lovely Mrs. G. to a vacation hotspot (outside of Iowa, for those of you who think that “vacation hotspots” are nearby) than spend four days sitting on the couch as my cerebral cortex slowly dissolves. Spending time outdoors with your lovely bride is a much better way to burn off a day, and it sure beats losing your mortgage money betting on some college freshman’s free throw abilities.
So with any luck our network will be back up soon, the sports sites will be blocked (IT usually locks out anything sports-related this time of year – gee, wonder why?), and people will return to doing what they actually get paid to do.
Blogging.
Oh. And other stuff, too. Yeah.
posted by Tommy G at
9:56 AM
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