How is it humanly possible for the CBS Early Show to be so dysfunctional? And so early in the morning, at that? The show has been a nest of infighting for months, since the times of deposed mean boss Shelley Ross. Now, we hear that more scheming and devious machinations are underway. A tipster says that Zev Shalev, who was named a senior producer for the show in March (and who CBS execs are said to want to take over permanently as the show's top producer), may be in the crosshairs of Michael Rosen, another senior producer who was once described to us as "a tyrant to the staff." Laurye Blackford, a departing senior producer and "mean girl," may also be involved. Of course, anyone who has survived at the show through all of its internal turbulence must be presumed to be an expert Machiavellian corporate backstabber. Beware, CBS staffers! Do you have any more info on the Early Show's drama? Email us, please.

Today's Page Six asks "WHICH slave-driving producer of a morning TV show was ordered by the network's legal department to cease and desist offering staffers tequila shots on Friday afternoons?" We haven't had a good poll here in awhile, but this one's pretty obvious. Over at the CBS 'Early Show,' producer Shelley Ross has been breaking balls since she arrived in September, prompting a number of staffers to walk. Ross herself was fired a couple of years ago from her ABC News gig in the wake of staff complaints about her um, rather intense management style. One CBS staffer, who sent a protest manifesto to network executives, complained that despite "tequila Fridays" being nixed, "there is much evidence that drinking tequila or alcohol but especially tequila with Shelley is considered the way 'in' with her and her group." Oh my God, the same thing happened to me in the ninth grade! After the jump, more bitchery and unrest at the consistently third-ranked network morning talk show.