Where The Hell Is My Bacon?

Preface

 A dark shadow had fallen over the technology department of a large Midwestern utility company. Five hundred geeks and nerds were drowning in a perfect storm of poorly-managed corporate changes, paralyzing uncertainty, plummeting morale, and record-high job dissatisfaction. In the past year, they had weathered a brand-new executive team who didn’t understand them, a major reorganization that confounded them, and a massive outsourcing effort that had most of the department terrified of losing their jobs and sanity. While the new and ever-revolving management team attempted to appease the unrest with token “Team Building” gestures, the team sank further into hopelessness. They were defeated. The once-strong work family had been thrown into a black hole of change that sucked the life out of most of the department. Then, one chilly November afternoon, an unexpected sun shone upon the techies as they slouched behind their cubicle walls. Their cold, despondent eyes slowly turned upward, and the glimmer of a once-forgotten dream reflected like dual 23-inch monitors onto their dejected faces. In an instant, there was hope. The IT department had found salvation, and its name was Bacon.

Chapter One: A Sad Day For Bacon

Bacon, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

I love thee in BLT’s on warm summer days;

Darrin Potter: I was just told that bacon bits were removed from the salad bar in the cafeteria, due to their low nutritional value. It’s a sad day for bacon.

November 8 at 12:36 p.m.

I rarely had an actual lunch break that November. In fact, it was still officially summer the last time I had been able to relax at my desk for half an hour over an egg salad sandwich or pretzel with mustard. As a self-proclaimed food-aholic, skipping a meal altogether was out of the question. But there was an undeniable need to use my lunch “hour” to catch up on unread email or overdue tasks while I frantically chewed mediocre cafeteria food (or worse, the “Rack o’ Death” vending machine alternative). Leaving the building was not an option because the next corporate fire drill was just around the corner. A few months ago, a noontime de-stressor at the local Wendy’s or Locos Rancheros across the street was a luxury my coworkers and I enjoyed on a regular basis. That was before I had been assigned as a lead in The Outsourcing Project From Hell. Sadly, I would not see my beloved redheaded pig-tailed girl or a giant beef burrito again for many moons. But after the chaos and turmoil of the past 60 days, even a mere 20 minutes to myself at my desk—without meetings, without interruption—was like winning the lottery.

For over a decade, I worked in the Information Technology department of a large Midwestern utility company. A few years earlier, I transferred into the position commonly known as The Team Lead, aka “first-level supervisor.” Or, as it became known to me, “the worst job in the world.” Okay, maybe not the worst, but seriously, if anyone ever approaches you and asks if you want to be a manager . . . flee. Channel your inner cheetah and sprint your ass out of that conversation before another word is spoken. I would be lying if I said I embraced the role—far from it. Prior to management I had been a successful “doer” focused on a finite number of roles for a manageable quantity of high-profile projects and seeing them through to great success. I went from coder to technical lead on small assignments, to technical lead on large efforts, playing just about every project role out there. And I found great satisfaction as my career progressed.

As sometimes happens, the people who work their way to success often get promoted to managerial positions. For many of them, this is a great fit. They easily fall into a role where they can find achievement and self-fulfillment through the accomplishments of other people. They learn to delegate the tasks they once excelled at to their team members and smoothly move onto a higher level of responsibility. I envy those people, but I am not one of them. I took on the responsibility of manager with full respect, don’t get me wrong. But I am an inherently selfish person and was unwilling to give up the part where I performed those self-satisfying assignments myself. Delegation was something I had to work on for a long time because I was accustomed to—and very much liked—being a doer vs. a manager. I didn’t know how to find success through others. And, if I am being honest, I liked the recognition. But I eventually learned to (sort of) embrace the managerial career path looming in front of me. I soon settled down into what I thought would be a steady, comfortable lane.

Three years into my management journey, everything changed.

Just about a year BB (Before Bacon), our department got a new Chief Information Officer named Maya Chad. Maya was quite different from the last CIO. Actually, I can’t even say for certain that we HAD a CIO before Maya came on board. If we did, he was a Ninja CIO because I don’t even know if it was a “he” or what he/she/they looked like, and I certainly never spoke to her—or them—exactly.

One of the first things Maya did was put the department through a major reorganization within a few months of her arrival. “Goliath” would be a good way to describe it. My opinion—and I believe one of many experts, none of whom I will use as a primary source, other than to say I did read this in a Gartner article once—is that reorgs should be done only when absolutely necessary. They should not be one of the first things a manager or director or vice president or CIO does after they are hired unless the situation is dire. There is a period of time during which you have to earn your employees’ trust. People have a difficult time with change, especially significant change. When you put them through a difficult time without understanding them and without working your way gently into their trust zone, it appears as if you don’t value them. When they don’t feel valued, they become unhappy. Unhappiness is like a disease that spreads throughout the company, and the symptoms are lower productivity, lack of motivation, plummeting morale, and a kind of chaotic soup that pervades the workplace. Reorganization is a major change. Do the math.

The second thing Maya did, less than a year after her arrival, was announce that the IT department would be outsourced to an offshore team in India. Well. I’m sure you can imagine how well THAT went over.

In between these two major spirit-crushing events, there were small sparks of goodness, such as when Maya opened employee access to several social media sites that had previously been blocked on our corporate network: Yammer, Facebook, and Twitter.

Yammer is an application very similar to Facebook, but for businesses. You can post statuses, comment, “like,” and create groups just like you can on the more well-known social site (to which I happen to be highly addicted . . . “like” if you are too). It was one way to drag our draconian policies out of the Middle Ages, and like many of my coworkers, I was drawn to the social site like I’m drawn to Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. And if you could see my ass, you’d know what I was talking about.

Most of the chatter on Yammer was very businesslike. Maya herself posted regularly and even some of our other old-school executives had taken up using this social marvel. Of course, whenever the vice presidents, directors, and upper managers start posting, the ass-kissers are never far behind. I can’t knock Yammer because it was a venue for communication we had not experienced before. But most of the content was “rah-rah, look how great of a company we are, life is great!” Technology! Entertainment! Design! Oh wait, that’s TED. Technology! Innovation! Business! Look at me, I just posted another LinkedIn article called “The Seven Things Good Managers Do To Keep Their Minions Under Control!” Hey, check out this new tablet review from mashable.com! I agree with you 100 percent, Mr. Vice-President, now please bend over and drop your executive drawers while I virtually pucker up!

The onslaught of posts on how great we were for entering the 21st century—long after it had started—just made some of us roll our eyes as we saw our department crumbling around us. Yammer and the other social media outlets were a distraction. They were positive on the surface, but in retrospect seemed like ploys to get people’s minds off the outsourcing and discord, blinding us to what was really going on with our jobs. I’m sure the company was following some formula a brilliant research psychoanalyst business expert came up with to handle major, unwanted change at a large corporation.

“First . . .” they would say—I imagine in a European accent, maybe German or the Queen’s English— “distract the employees with ‘gifts’ that appear to be rewards for their good behavior. Allow them access to some things they didn’t have before (harmless things, of course, no sense in going overboard with the trust and responsibility. After all, they are mere worker bees). Social media, for example. They’ll think you are a god.

“Then start inviting some low-level employees—team leads, first-level supervisors, maybe even a promising worker bee him- or herself—to consult with you . . . as if you really care what they think. Pretend to listen and agree with their ‘great’ ideas, which you can promptly ignore. Allow them to pursue innovative ideas (a la 3M) as long as they do it on their own time because the regular work won’t stop (it’s actually going to get much worse, but don’t tell them that!). Pretend to empathize with the huge workload they are all carrying so they come to believe it’s something they cannot handle. All the while, carefully and gradually start talking about outsourcing. But for goodness’ sake, don’t call it ‘outsourcing!’ We don’t want it to sound as bad as it really is. Let’s call it ‘managed sourcing’ and then find a way to make it seem as if ‘managed sourcing’ is really the savior to rescue all of the employees from the ugly workload that they can’t possibly keep up with. Yes, we know they have done this so far, but we want them to believe they are overworked and that bringing in an outsourcing . . . er, rather, a ‘managed sourcing’ team . . . will relieve them of this burden. All clear? Excellent, now GO!”

All that being said, we sure did like our Yammer. Along with the ass-kissing, boring business posts, and numerous uses of Yammer as a pseudo-help desk, there were occasional bright spots. A few of us rebellious types always took advantage of any opportunity to add some levity. Mingled in with the corporate mush were pockets of brilliance, like dog stories and lots of sarcastic humor. But for the most part, it was simply another mechanism to talk about boring work stuff.

Oddly enough, it was on Yammer where we found bacon and our salvation.

In that now renowned November, sitting at my desk for an unprecedented power lunch, I wasn’t even thinking about bacon. I mean, of course I was thinking about bacon. What self-respecting non-vegetarian doesn’t think about pork products at least 187 times per day? What I meant was, I wasn’t thinking about bacon as a beacon of change. At that point, bacon was just a fleeting thought in my nebulous brain, like “I need to go to the bathroom” or “It feels good to stretch.” Sometimes I would get up to go to the bathroom and a slab of thick-cut, apple-smoked bacon would flash into my mind like an awesome, instantaneous daydream. When I stood up from my desk to stretch—as one should do at least every hour or so—I might hear sizzling in the back of my brain. But I didn’t really think about bacon consciously, as one might think about making a doctor’s appointment or finishing an internet quiz (in case you were wondering, the Lord of the Rings character I am most like is Aragorn).

As I popped open a bag of Cheetos (lunch of champions), I decided to check my Yammer feed. I wasn’t expecting much, but as a one-time power-user of this social mecca, I missed it desperately. A few months earlier I had been on several leader boards for Most Likes and Most Comments (thank yuh . . . thank yuh very much), but after my long absence, I thought I might have been forgotten.

And then there it was, right at the top of my news feed, posted just seconds before my login. Bacon. Oh, you scamp, you. Where have you been all this time?

Darrin Potter: I was just told that bacon bits were removed from the salad bar in the cafeteria, due to their low nutritional value. It’s a sad day for bacon. L

November 8 at 12:36 p.m.

WHAT? Was this a post that did not involve congratulating a vice president on an important executive decision? A post not asking a help desk question, or giving kudos to an intern for pulling an all-nighter to get through a project? A post about nothing businesslike at all, revolving around my favorite pork product EVER? I don’t believe in fate, but this was most definitely fate. On any other day, I would have missed this gem. It would have been buried under mountains of the business mundane and we would have never crossed paths. But here it was, in black and white, staring me in the face on the first day I had logged into Yammer in months. And I was on it like honey on a hot biscuit.

I knew the pain from whence Darrin spoke. A couple of weeks earlier, a corporate edict had been handed down to the cafeteria, designed to make it more difficult—or impossible—to buy unhealthy food. I have no doubt this mandate came partly from concerns about growing health care costs, and partly from someone’s genuine commitment to improving the health of us physically substantial types who consider a Snickers bar a well-rounded meal (it has nuts, and nuts have fiber). As a logical, reasonable person with a higher-than-average IQ (so I tell myself), I could actually comprehend the motive behind this move. However, as a resident truffle-shuffler with a higher-than-average appetite, I was, like, “ARE YOU FOR REAL, BITCH??? A DOLLAR EXTRA FOR REAL FREAKING CHEESE?!”

Let me digress here for a moment. Someone please define for me what is “healthy” by cafeteria standards (or any standards, for that matter)? They removed bacon from the salad bar, yet all the non-organic, pesticide-laden vegetables remained. They charged extra for regular soda pop vs. diet, because sugar is apparently so much worse for you than artificial sweeteners that ravage your endocrine system. They made us pay more for real cheddar made from actual milk and less for fake cheddar made from hydrogenated oil. Antibiotic-laden chicken burgers were served on top of gut-inflaming refined white flour buns. The concept of “healthy” is quite subjective, my friends. Just check the news. For the life of me I can’t recall if coffee is good for me or bad for me this week. Or eggs. The crowning moment was when they started charging extra if we wanted cheese . . . on a quesadilla. A quesadilla, in case you didn’t know, is a CHEESE DILLA! Queso=cheese! By definition, it contains cheese! That’s like charging extra if you want bacon on your BLT! It’s not a BLT if you don’t get the B! Critical thinking skills are so important.

Now back to our tale, still in progress. Bacon post. Yammer. Angels singing.

But wait! What just happened? The bacon post was gone! Oh Darrin, Darrin, no . . . what the hell? This cannot be happening. I cannot be denied my one chance in a million to talk about crackling, fatty-lard pig! Oh no you didn’t!

I popped out of my chair, almost slamming into my cubicle wall (okay, “wall” is probably stretching it) and ran over to the next aisle where Darrin sat. Despite the fact that I would be losing precious minutes of a lunch break I barely had anyway, this was a mission. Darrin sat at his desk with his hand on the mouse, the blood from his deleted pork post still warm.

“Dude!” I cried, because that’s how professional managers talk. “Dude, what happened to the bacon post? I was just about to comment!”

I’m sure Darrin could see the desperate, crazed look in my eyes. Fortunately, Darrin is very smart, so he did not call company security. He shrugged his shoulders sheepishly and muttered some lame excuse about second thoughts and not wanting to offend people in the cafeteria. Blah blah blah. I was not having it. There is no excuse for denying bacon.

“Seriously, you will not offend anyone,” I reassured him. I like to think I have a strong sense of emotional intelligence. I knew bacon was just what we needed right then because I knew people like their bacon and they like their choices. “I promise you, if you post it again I will ‘like’ and comment right away in full support.”

I made some attempt at a pseudo-Scout’s Honor motion with my fingers on my forehead even though I wasn’t really a scout and it probably looked more like I was brushing away a fly than giving a solid oath. But it worked because Darrin agreed to re-post his bacon complaint.

Victory. Is. Mine.

I hustled back to my seat and started typing.

Beth Anne Campbell in reply to Darrin Potter: I'm glad I'm not the only one. By the way, stress is one of the top unhealthy things in the universe and I'm pretty sure the AMA approved both bacon and chocolate as recommended supplements for their calming effects. Everything in moderation. Bring back the pig.

November 8 at 12:38 p.m.

Sarcasm. It’s just one of the services I offer.

I must pause here for a moment because some of you may be going through your own company-mandated health kick. Let me reassure you, this too shall pass. I have lived through four or five of these in my two decades in the corporate world, and every time it is the same: they remove some of the “unhealthy” foods altogether and charge more for anything left that Corporate deems questionable. Sales, of course, will plummet. Then, inevitably they restore said “unhealthy” foods and have happy employees once again. This will happen in your organization, so just deal with it by heading to the local Mexican restaurant for lunch where you can ride it out with extra sour cream and medium salsa (which contains, as it were, many healthy vegetables).

Beth Anne Campbell in reply to Darrin Potter: Also, is the recent healthy overhaul the reason why the coffee counter has not had those DELECTABLE cookies this week? This may cause a riot. If I can't have the occasional white chocolate macadamia giant soft home-baked scrumptious cookie, I might just have to start OCC (Occupy Corporate Cafe).

November 8 at 12:50 p.m.

Liked by Cassie Tamarack, Jen Parker, and Carol Burns

This all took place around the time Occupy Wall Street was peaking. And this is in no way intended to seriously compare the missing white chocolate macadamia giant soft home-baked scrumptious cookies with the real Occupy movement. As AMAZING as those cookies were and as distressing as it was when they disappeared, it did not compare to the real struggles of real people facing real corporate greed. Apples and oranges, people.

I found out later that the cookies had NOT, in fact, been removed as part of the health mandate. The kitchen cooks were simply running behind. Which, I think, underscores my earlier point. Remove bacon but leave the diabetes disks? Sugar causes far more damage to our bodies than bacon ever will, even in its fattiest, most nitrate-saturated form. As astounding as bacon is, I don’t walk past the meat section at the grocery store thinking that I absolutely must have a package of Oscar Mayer Hickory-smoked bacon RIGHT NOW in the same way I do a Twix or Kit Kat bar in the check-out aisle. Sugar is a different beast altogether, and although I don’t want to give the Vice President who dealt out this health directive any ideas, removing desserts would have been a more logical alternative.

It didn’t take long for others in the department to recognize what an atrocity it was to ban an innocent pork product from the salad bar.

Bart Swartout in reply to Darrin Potter: This is all a bit too authoritarian for me. I am all for having healthy choice options but removing arguably “bad” choices altogether seems a little radical. I mean, who really wants to eat salad unless it’s flavored up with bacon and a healthy portion of grated cheddar? No one, is the answer. I get this makes it “less healthy,” but it allows me to tolerate the kale, bean sprouts, and mushrooms. Without those little bits of paradise we call bacon, I will just head over to Wendy’s and get myself a Baconator. Which kind of defeats the purpose of removing bacon bits in the first place.

November 8 at 1:04 p.m. from iPad

Liked by Beth Anne Campbell, Tamara Bryan, Rodney Carter, and four others 

Bart’s participation in this chain of comments is critical because he was higher up than me on the managerial food chain. Okay, nearly any manager was above me on the corporate hierarchy, but even one level higher gives much more credibility to our lost bacon laments. Plus, Bart was the golden boy of the IT department—really smart, quick, and with an eye for innovation. When he left to go work for another utility company in Texas two years AB (After Bacon) and just after our CIO Maya left the company, it is rumored one of our vice presidents gave Bart not only his personal cell phone number, but also his wife’s personal cell phone number. Allegedly he told Bart to get a couple years’ experience and he’d bring him back to fill the vacated CIO seat. That didn’t end up happening, but Bart was so well known and respected in the IT department, some of us believed it could be true.

And so, within 30 minutes of Darrin’s original post, his worries about bacon shredding the morale of the cafeteria staff were proven unfounded. In two days, it would become the all-time most commented on post in our company’s Yammer history. And within a week it would spawn a protest that painted a clearer portrait of the gaps in the department’s change management and employee engagement efforts than the powers-that-be ever could . . . or did.