He never did print that bracket. But he did save the file as Final_FINAL_v7_ActualLastOne.xlsx .

Now, the spreadsheet had grown teeth. Conditional formatting bled green and red across the “Prediction” column. Drop-down menus listed every upset special from “Double-Digit Seed Shock” to “Cinderella’s Glass Slipper.” A macro—written during a fit of caffeine-fueled genius—automatically reseeded teams if a 12 beat a 5.

But Alex couldn’t. The Excel file had become his white whale. He added sparklines. He embedded a pie chart of predicted upsets. He wrote an IF statement that displayed “BUSTED” if a favorite lost.

Here’s a short story based on that search. Alex stared at the blinking cursor in the Excel cell. B1. Empty. Below it, a grid of 16 rows waited, like silent soldiers. The office March Madness pool was his responsibility this year, and he’d typed exactly four words into Google: 16 team tournament bracket excel .

That was three hours ago.

At 2:00 PM, the pool started without him. Someone used a laminated 16-team bracket from the supply closet. Alex didn’t notice. He was still there at midnight, staring at cell A1.

“Print it,” said his boss, Karen, appearing with a coffee mug that read World’s Okayest Manager . “The bracket pool starts in ten minutes.”

“It’s beautiful,” whispered his coworker Priya, peering over his shoulder. “But where’s the actual bracket?”