GET SPORTS SCORES ON SLY, AT WORK

GAME TIME!

GET SCORES ON SLY, AT WORK

Microsoft, believe it or not, has scored one for the little guy.

With three teams in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, Wisconsin is well-represented at the big dance by UW, UWM and Marquette. Countless thousands of hours of manpower will be wasted by employees following the games rather than their career trajectories.

This is one reason why some corporations block employee access to sports news sites, with their message boards, streaming videos and other allurements. Other firms have technology departments that monitor employee computer use so that unauthorized or frequent visits to sports news sites among the prisoners of cubicle row can be detected and punished.

Leave it to the folks at Microsoft to devise a system so we can check the scores of our favorite teams in real time, during work hours, from our desks, and without attracting the attention of the boss.

Simply go to the MSN search engine , enter the name of the school or team you are following, and you will receive real-time scores, past game results and upcoming game schedules, delivered to you in such a fashion that will not likely send a red flag to your boss or corporate computer overlord. The information is powered with data from Fox Sports, which is working in conjunction with Microsoft on this project.

How is this bit of corporate stealth possible? It’s simple. Most corporate filters have software that sorts data by megabytes of traffic. Sports sites, with their wealth of data, video and other links consume many megabytes, as do gambling and porn sites. So, when employees use company time to visit such sites, the filters pick up the extraordinary amount of megabytes, and before you know it, they’re busted!

However, most filters are not designed to be troubled by innocuous inquiries to search engines, and the text documents generated when you search MSN for team results will create little traffic for your company’s IT department to get excited about.

So, follow your team(s) during the championship series without the boss becoming aware!

This Healthy Workplace Update is brought to you as a public service by www.milwaukeeworld.com , which does not generate many megabytes and is always a safe place to visit any time, whether at work, play, or home.

--Michael Horne