March Madness Mistake

My boss called me into his office yesterday. He stood up and asked to shake my hand. I was obviously confused. I know that I am a good employee, but I couldn't remember doing anything worthy of a stand-up-smiley-hand-shake. Then everything became clear when he said, "You obviously know your basketball! You are so far ahead in points that no one can catch you. YOU WON!"

I WON! I WON! YEE-DOUBLE-HAW! I did my happy dance right there in his office! I was so excited! I was a GIRL and I won the office NCAA basketball pool! I tried to pat myself on the back and found that my arms weren't long enough.

My boss sent out an email to everyone that participated congratulating me and the runners-up. I quickly forwarded the email to Kyle…….because I knew that he would be totally unimpressed, but proud of me anyway. I pulled up the email and opened the spreadsheet to view my sweet victory. It was the prettiest spreadsheet I had ever seen. For a minute, I contemplated taking it to Kinko's, having it printing it in four-color poster size, framing it and hanging it on the bare walls of my office.

Then…..well, then…….I saw it. One little number. It glared at me like the reflection off Brittany Spears' head. He had made a mistake in my score. He had calculated that I had nine wins in the regional semifinals. Since there were only eight spots to win, I knew that he had calculated my score incorrectly. I pulled out my highlighted brackets and only counted seven wins.I took my brackets and slowly walked to his office, the sweet taste of victory slowly disappearing. "I know that I have already done my happy dance and you have already sent out my congratulatory email with a BEAUTIFUL spreadsheet, but my score is wrong."

He double checked it. Unfortunately I was right. DAG-NAB-IT!

He gave me everyone's brackets and I carefully audited everyone's wins and compared them to the email spreadsheet. There were a few mistakes here and there, but only two big ones. In the end, I lost sixteen points and the person in second place gained a few points. In the end, there were two people that could pass me in points.

I know that I should be all poor-poor-pitiful-me and be a big ol' whiney baby about it, but I am actually excited. This makes watching the Final Four even more fun! Each person that has a chance to win has picked a different team, so that adds a whole new level of excitement.

So if you are truly my friend……I will expect you to be cheering for Florida this weekend. I really want my name in that darn company newsletter!