What is the biggest time waster for your business? One man’s waste is another man’s entertainment. Some would say music or talk radio playing in the work area is a waste, and they could be right.

Others may say the sharing of recipes or sharing the latest photographs of family and pets. That is another valid point. At times, it can be that one vendor who really only needs five minutes at your business, but turns it into an hour or more every call he makes.

But nationally, the most often mentioned culprit is the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, called March Madness, but no one else is supposed to call it that. Basketball fans and people who can’t tell an unforced turnover from an apple turnover jump into the annual competition as heavily as the Super Bowl. But the Super Bowl is one game. March Madness is three weeks.

They somehow cram 48 hours of basketball into a 24-hour day the first four days of the tournament. Almost everyone enters some kind of a betting poll, whether it is one that requires knowledge of the game or not.

We cheer the Cinderella teams and groan with the poll-buster losses. We also crowd around monitors or television screens to catch the constant updates by Dickey V and the other announcers. They are the prime-time users and abusers, you might say.

It is time for another year of clipping entries and checking the results. It is supposed to be all fun and games. Hopefully, no one will bet the grocery money. We actually host our annual Butler Eagle competition, which draws well over 1,000 entries every year.

The boss is rumored to post an entry under a fake news name because employees aren’t allowed to participate. Our advertisers try their luck at picking the national champion as well. We have never heard of anyone going out of business because of the time employees waste on the brackets they complete and join around town, but we hope everyone will be on their best behavior this year and not let this be a detriment to the bottom line.

Now if you will excuse us, we have a bracket to complete.

— RV