As I'm sure you're aware, you'll be able to watch NCAA Tournament games online again this year, absolutely free. That's fantastic news, unless your boss is anything like Jeff Withers of Collins Electrical in Stockton, California, subject of this USA Today article and a gigantic sanitary napkin.

If your boss isn't letting you get in on the fun, try to sway him with some of these points. Feel free to e-mail this to him or her, or print it out and leave it on their desk; anonymously if you have to. There's some convincing stuff in here.

10. Trust me, they're not really working anyway. I'm not kidding. I used to be in an office environment, and boss, you would be amazed at how many different ways your employees find to not work. I used to actually do things that were less pleasant than work, just to honor the principle. I'm not even sure what that principle was, but I felt strongly about it. I worked very hard to not have to do any real work.

9. In the long run, you'll actually get more productivity. If you block access to the online feed, your employees are going to hate you. You think Robert over in human resources is going to bust his ass for you after you've just denied him one of the few things that brings him joy in this life? He's not. And that hate's going to last a long time, and the longer it lasts, the less productivity you get from Robert. Make Robert happy, and then Robert will make you happy.

8. It's either that, or they'll be refreshing this scoreboard every 10 seconds. One way or another, they're going to follow the game. You can make it easy on them, or you can contribute to their early development of carpal tunnel syndrome caused by repetitive clicking. It's up to you.

7. Ask yourself two questions: What would Michael Scott do, and what would Bill Lumbergh do? And then decide which of those two you'd rather be. Michael used to gather his employees to watch Varsity Blues on Monday. Lumbergh made Peter come in on a Saturday. And even with the harsh realities facing the paper industry, I still bet that Dunder Mifflin is doing better than Initech. Unfortunately, I don't have the numbers to back that up.

6. It will foster a sense of camaraderie among your employees, which will facilitate a paradigm shift throughout the office to a more broad-based, results-driven, consumer-focused atmosphere that builds company synergy and gives your employees the freedom to embrace emerging technologies and think outside the box. That means absolutely nothing to me, but you people seem to like that kind of talk, so I hope you found some meaning in there and it somehow swayed you.

5. You've wasted time on less productive things. Basically, I'm talking about every meeting you've ever had. So much of what you make your employees do is utterly pointless. Why not, for one afternoon, be honest with yourself and your employees about wasting time? You might find it refreshing.

4. There's a huge chain e-mail going around right now that encourages all employees who are denied access to March Madness to make Monday, "National Office Supply Theft Day."* Is it worth it? Giving your employees a couple hours to enjoy themselves vs. losing 75% of your binder clips and a couple of laser printers on Monday? Do a cost-analysis on that one, boss.

3. You are threatening the existence of the species. What am I talking about? I'm talking about swarms of men who would rather lose their reproductive ability than not be able to watch the opening Thursday and Friday of the tournament. A generation of men, without the ability to procreate. Thanks a lot, boss! This is the very survival of the species that we're talking about. You want that on your conscience? You want to risk that? Go rent Children of Men sometime, buddy, and tell me how pleasant that world looks. It will be all your fault, and I don't think Clive Owen's got it in him to bail us out of that mess again.

2. There's probably someone in your office who is on the brink of a killing spree anyway. Don't risk it.

1. You're really kind of an ass if you don't. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but that's the way it is. Do you really want to be the hard-ass boss that everyone hates? You don't want to live like that. It's not a huge sacrifice we're talking about here. Two afternoons where a few employees use up some bandwidth so they're not miserable people who hate waking up every morning. That's it. Do the right thing.

* = To my knowledge, there isn't. But I swear, I'll start one.

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