True Caring Bosses Spy On You

Every year, noted outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas makes up a statistic about how much productivity is “lost” during the NCAA Tournament, and every year the media writes about it over and over and over even though the statistic is pretty much complete BS. (Check out Jack Shafer’s column from last year for a nice recap.)

The best is that, if one bothered to check, you could see the made-up stat every year. In 2005, the firm said $889 million. 2006? A cool $3.6 billion. And this year, the firm is saying $1.2 billion. Yes, apparently last year was the most popular NCAA Tournament of all time, since it cost this fine country slightly less than three billion dollars more than the years surrounding it.

Anyway, KYW 1060 joins the list of lovable media outlets that buy this shit, or at least report on it, about how oh my God the NCAA Tournament is so bad it makes outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas get its name in the news without them having to pay for it! But, hey, at least we’re $2.4 billion better than last year.

The story’s kind of cute, actually, as Ian Bush interviews a pair of workers who have to say they don’t care about the tourney because their boss is with them. But then he talks with Adam Schran, who created a monitoring software for businesses:

“You can block the NCAA site and they can go to some other sports site, like ESPN. You can’t ever be complete when it comes to blocking. Really, I think what demonstrates more trust for the employee is to let them go to the sites they’re going to, and let them know that you can monitor them.”

Yeah! What demonstrates the most trust is spying on your employees! I mean, if you tell them first!

Area Office Workers Say They’re Leaving NCAA Action at Home (Yeah, Right.) [KYW 1060]
Productivity Madness [Slate]

Wal-Mart Lowers Cost Of Happiness To $4

Just weeks after Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton agreed to in part purchase The Gross Clinic for the new Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas, Wal-Mart has brought Pennsylvania cheap drugs.

In a sooner-than-expected expansion of the program, which launched in Florida in September, Pennsylvania residents will be able to purchase 330 different generic prescription drugs for just $4 for a month’s supply. The program only affects older generic drugs, according to a spokeswoman for the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, some of which have “sometimes seven” different manufacturers.

So you won’t be getting any Viagra for $4. But you can get get generic Paxil (Paroxetine) and a host of other antidepressants! (And you can get loratadine, too, which is really cheap for generic Claritin.) A Wal-Mart spokesman said the company is somehow making money from this program, which probably means the suppliers are pissed.

But, anyway, hey, $4 prescriptions! Wal-Mart may be stealing The Gross Clinic, but at least they’re letting us feel better about it by giving us antidepressants on the cheap.

More cheap prescription drugs in Pa. [Bucks County Courier Times]
Wal-Mart’s $4 Generics Program Launched in Final 11 States [Wal-Mart Facts]

Introducing ‘Leadonomics’

A new entry in the “Overwritten Lead of the Moment” contest — which, yes, is essentially over, but still — arrived in my inbox today. (Yes, send these things in, people. I love them.)

It’s from ABC News, and it’s a story about the price of sex, and it comes to us from John Allen Paulos:

The best-selling book “Freakonomics” examines the economics of some ordinary life situations. If these situations involve sex, the analysis might be better termed Sexonomics.

That’s not true. Freakonomics isn’t the study of freaks and money, so why would Sexonomics be the study of sex and money? It’d have to be something different, like Freakyonomics.

Who’s Counting: Sexonomics — Prostitutes’ Incomes [ABC News]
May 4: The ‘Overwritten Lead Of The Moment’ Competition Is Over