Cascade Reviews the Data
Chapter 18 in my ongoing story about workplace surveillance
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Cascade leafed through the folder of reports Stamper had handed him.
Man, these are nice reports, he thought. Super clear. I wish all reports were this clear.
He walked down the hall, paging through the printout. Cascade printed stuff out because he couldn’t stand being chained to his computer. He wanted to keep moving.
He was walking along, not looking up, but then he turned to the first graph, which compared tap rates among the different product teams in core services. Everything went along normally until one team started a steady deviation upward. He stopped in the middle of the hall.
What the hell is this? Why are tap rates going up on this one team? Who’s the manager there? I’ll straighten ‘em out.
Distracted, he flipped forward, to a drill-down Total Tap Report on the one team whose tap rate had been trending upward.
What the fuck? Cascade fumed. This team is out of control! Stamper should do something about this team. If she can’t, I will. Why the hell aren’t the corrective taps working here? It’s like these people are actively resisting our taps. We can’t have that. But then he looked up, surprised to find himself at the meeting he was joining. He smiled as he entered the room.
Ten minutes later, Cascade sat there, paying no attention to conversation around him. He couldn’t stop fuming about these reports.
There better be a report on the individuals on this team, he thought, paging forward. Oh, yeah, here it is. What’s this de-identified bullshit? I don’t need person 1, person 2. I want names! Damn, person 7 is way out there—he’s got twice as many taps as anyone else, and they just keep coming. We should fire this person. He turned the page to the graph labeled “Taps Over Time.” What the hell? Person 7’s taps go up, and then everyone else on his team starts to go up as well. Who is this guy? Goddammit, I want names. I’m not going to put up with this shit.
“Mitch?” said the guy next to him, he couldn’t remember his name.
“Yeah, what is it?” barked Cascade.
“The meeting is over, a new group is coming in,” the guy said.
“Oh sure, sure,” said Cascade, as if he knew it. “I’m a little caught up in something!”
He kept the folder open in front of him as he walked out the door—and nearly walked right into Kate Stamper. “Stamper, holy shit, these reports ...”
“Mitch,” Stamped hissed. “I’ve got my whole team coming in. Not right now.”
“We need to talk about this! Can they meet without you?” he demanded.
“No!” Stamper insisted. “I’ll catch you afterward.”
“It better be soon Stamper,” he growled, then realized Stamper’s whole team was queued up in the hall, waiting for them to clear the door. He turned on his wolf grin. “Hi everybody, keep up the great work. Gotta go.”
Stamper caught Keith’s eye. They had both noticed the reports in Cascade’s hands.
As Stamper’s meeting ended, there was Cascade at the door. As soon as people stood up, Cascade opened the door and walked in. “Stamper, I noticed you didn’t have a meeting after this one, can we talk?” he asked, beaming as if this was the most normal thing to do. “And how about the person who created these great reports?” He held up the folder of reports. “Are they in this group? Can they stay too?” He looked around, smiling, to see who it would be.
Keith waved: “That’s me, I can stay.”
Cascade waited as the room emptied, all the while smiling at people as they left, keeping up a constant patter of “good to see you,” “keep up the good work,” “go get ‘em.” Then he closed the door.
“Mitch Cascade,” he said, stepping toward Keith and extending his hand. “These are great reports, really clear.”
“Thanks a lot, Mr. Cascade,” said Keith. “I’m Keith Conn.”
“Keith, call me Mitch,” said Cascade, then the smile dropped. “These reports look great ... but this data is bullshit,” he fumed.
“Sir, I went over the data several times, I swear it’s accurate,” said Keith. “I can tell you how I ...”
“I’m not saying it’s not accurate,” interjected Cascade. “I’m saying it’s intolerable. I want to know what you’re doing about it?”
“Sir, I ...” stammered Keith.
“Mitch,” Stamper interrupted, “it’s not Keith’s job to do anything about this data!”
“Then whose is it?” barked Cascade. “We’ve clearly got people—and you’re going to get me their names!—who are resisting the taps, and from what I can tell, we’ve got one person—Person 7!—,” he said sarcastically, “who seems to be single-handedly increasing resistance to our efforts across his entire team. I want to know who’s going to fix it!”
“That would be my job Mitch, mine and the managers,” said Stamper, redirecting Cascade’s heat toward herself.
“So why aren’t you doing it?” demanded Cascade.
“Because we want to understand the problem first!” asserted Stamper.
“What’s not to understand: this guy is trouble. Get rid of him!”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Make it that simple!”
“Mitch, I’m not going to insist that this guy be fired!”
“Why not? If those reports reveal what I think they do, you’ve got people who think they can get away with resisting what you’re doing. There’s only one way to handle this: show him and everyone else who’s boss. If you won’t do it, I will.”
“You know it’s not that simple,” said Stamper. “We’ve got to notify him of the problem, put him on a Performance Improvement Plan, give him time to improve ...”
“Bullshit! Bullshit!,” Cascade pounded his hand on the desk. “Not for insubordination! We can fire him on the spot.”
“But Mitch, he’s a top performer in every other way! He just doesn’t seem to like the tap system. Why can’t we take this as an opportunity to learn from it, improve the system?”
“You know if you let this go, other people will smell your weakness. They’ll start trying to get away with things too,” insisted Cascade, though with just a little less heat.
“I think we can handle this in a way that allows us to improve,” insisted Stamper.
“We don’t need to improve!” said Cascade. “This guy does. I wouldn’t put up with it.” He looked at Keith, wanting to make sure Keith registered his strength.
“Mitch, I think I can handle it, but I’ll do it differently than you would.”
“You’ll see Stamper, you can’t show weakness,” Cascade said, but she could tell he was giving ground. “We’ve got a good system, people just need to get in line and do it.”
“We do have a good system, but it’s still new and we have to be open to improvement. I mean, this is a great time for us to ‘learn and be curious,’ right?” offered Stamper, backing her position with an LP.
“That’s right Stamper, see that Ken?,” he said, getting Keith’s name wrong. “Learn and Be Curious! Good. That’s good. But when it comes time for it, there better fucking be some Bias for Action too!”
And with that, Cascade slapped the folder closed, threw it on the table, and said, “But whatever you do, fix this!”
He started for the door, then stopped and turned around. “And Ken?” he said. “Keep those reports coming to me. I want to see anything new you’re finding.”
“You bet,” said Keith. What else could he say?
Stamper looked over at him: he looked like a guy who’d just received a guilty verdict. “Don’t worry Keith,” she said, “We’ll figure this out.” Somehow.
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