I've learned over the years that when a corporate type frets about lost productivity, he is never gazing into a mirror.

Executives are blind to their own productivity issues but certain that big problems lurk amongst the cubicles. The latest worry is how much company time employees are wasting online, betting on the NCAA tournament. Why do you notice the mote in your flunky's eye, Mr. Big Shot, but consider not the basketball in your own?

I first ran into this problem eons ago when I worked as an office temp, filling in for an executive secretary. The VP at whose pleasure I served had me running his personal errands and accused me of goldbricking when I got stuck in traffic on the way back from picking up his dry cleaning. As far as I could tell, he spent most of his valuable time reading the paper, schmoozing with his buddies and griping about my productivity.

My pal Mike and his colleagues have been operating under a productivity microscope for the last few weeks. The team is a bunch of computer wizards whose mission is to prevent catastrophes at one of Colorado's larger employers. Like emergency room doctors, they work in shifts, ready to spring into action 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Their work is exotic and difficult to explain to the average nonwizard, so Mike's team is often viewed with suspicion by company budget minders.

The latest response to that suspicion has been to subject the team to the inquiring minds of Waste Watchers. WW is a consulting group specializing in productivity - people who used to be called efficiency experts. Mike's company is paying WW a sizeable sum to root out inefficient operations. In theory, the consultants earn their fat fee by spotting and destroying unnecessary expenses, by which they generally mean unnecessary humans.

Since Mike and the gang are unique, WW devised a unique scheme to identify inefficient staffing: on each shift, one team member must stand by but sit on his hands, forbidden to work unless absolutely necessary. By tracking the team's time over several weeks, WW expects to uncover where time is being wasted.

Thus far, there haven't been too many days when the benched team member stayed on the bench for a full shift. But Mike is a realist, and he isn't holding out hope. "Why do they bother with this baloney?" he grumbles. "Why not just can a couple of people? You know that's what'll happen when the experiment is finished. We have just enough people to keep things running smoothly - if anybody calls in sick, it's brutal. But that's not the answer the consultants were hired to deliver.

"Management could eliminate the middleman and save the money they're spending on this sideshow. Of course, if they did that and everything went to hell 'cause we're understaffed, the big shots wouldn't have anyone to blame. So what it comes down to is, they're blowing a lot of cash just to cover their rears.

"I wonder when Waste Watchers will get around to tracking executive productivity," Mike muses.

"On second thought, I have a feeling no VP would ever find the budget to pay for that."

Erica Heath is a 20-year veteran of the corporate wars. Her e-mail address is ericaheath@aol.com.