Every time there is a major sporting event, the Business section of the newspaper gets jealous of all of the attention the Sports section is getting, so they run a deceptive little article about lost worker productivity. It's the same every time. This week it's about baseball:

"An epic Red Sox-Yankees baseball showdown may be denting worker productivity as bleary-eyed fans call in sick, show up late to work or linger too long around the water cooler dissecting every play, experts said on Wednesday."

- Frost, G. (2004). Hidden cost of baseball fever: Edgy, weary workers. Reuters news - Oct 20, 2004. Retrieved from http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1896&u=/nm/life_baseball_dc&printer=1 on Oct 21, 2004.

I also have a hardcopy newspaper clipping from right after the last Super Bowl:

"Employees who huddle around watercoolers to discuss the big game are costing employers $2.59 every 10 minutes ... About 58 million U.S. workers ... With Monday-morning quarterbacking expected for several days, the final tally could hit $821 million ..."

- Employers may lose millions on Super Bowl. New York Daily News.

These articles forget to factor in the hidden benefits of social networking, relationship building, and increasing the group's connectivity (using the social science definition of this word, not the technology definition.) How much money does the group save on team building activities by allowing team building to occur naturally? I wonder if the managers who spend money trying to stop hallway chatter would also spend money on team building outside of the office. I can hear him now... "Quit yapping about the ropes-course we did last Friday at team building and get back to work!"

I really like that the writers of these articles use the term water cooler to describe a bad phenomenon. Especially, since a new book called "Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development" uses watercooler to discuss the positive aspects of social interaction at work.

Brown and Duguid (1991) examined a study of repair representatives at Xerox and found that successful representatives learned how to fix specific problems or how to deal with customers from "war stories" during lunchtime conversations. The representatives would "gather in common areas, like the local parts warehouse, hang around the coffee pot, and swap stories from the field" (Brown & Gray, 1995).

Don't drink the Kool-Aid: if your team is not having lunch together, playing fantasy football, or talking about non-work topics, then you have problems. So, here's the pop quiz: will companies save money or lose money if there is no Stanley Cup this year? Now I'm depressed.