Not All Data Is Good Data

Chapter 14 in my ongoing story about workplace surveillance

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“What the hell are these questions employees are getting?” barked Cascade as he walked into Stamper’s office. He had stopped knocking a while ago—but the smile never stopped.

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean,” said Stamper, pulling her head out of the work he had interrupted. 

“This Daily Pulse question that went out today, about how employees feel about predictive taps,” said Cascade, slapping a printout down in front of her. Every manager got a daily report on how their employees had answered the Daily Pulse questions. The results were anonymous—but at L8 and above, you could find out how individuals answered. “Why are we offering them negative options?”

Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash

“Hold on, let me read it,” said Stamper. It read like this:

When I get a tap to improve my future behavior I (select all that apply):

• Appreciate learning how I can improve

• Think about how I can correct my behavior so I don’t get another tap

• Wonder what I did to get this tap

• Worry that I am not meeting standards

• Feel frustrated that I am being watched

She immediately saw what he was angry about—the last option. 

“I didn’t see this one,” she admitted.

“Didn’t you view your Pulse Report?” he demanded.

“Not yet—I’ve been busy.” 

“You’ve got to make time for these.”

“Yeah, I get it. My bad,” said Stamper.

“What about that last option,” he pressed on. “Why the hell is that in there?”

“I don’t know ...”

“Then find out!” 

“I will.”

But Cascade wasn’t ready to let up.

“You see the problem, don’t you Stamper?” he bore in. “If you put this kind of negative thought in peoples’ heads, this is how they’ll start to see it. We should only give them positive options. I don’t mind them worrying that they’re not meeting standards or wondering if they should be doing better. That’s good. But why the hell would we acknowledge they might feel frustrated at being watched?”

“Mitch,” she pleaded. “I don’t know, I just saw it. Let me look into it, I’m sure somebody just got in a hurry.”

“Or someone is trying to sabotage the program,” he inserted. “We can’t have that Stamper. If people aren’t on board, they shouldn’t be here.”

“Mitch, please, let’s not jump to conclusions. This is a good team, they believe in what we’re doing. I’m sure it’s just a mistake ...”

“We don’t make mistakes Stamper. We’re right, a lot, remember?” 

“I know, I know. Let me dig in on it. I’ll dive deep, okay?” She had parried his use of a Leadership Principle with an LP of her own. 

“That’s right Stamper, dive deep, that’s good. I can’t have anyone encouraging resistance or undermining our decisions.” He had a way of saying stuff like this with his big grin that made it seem almost normal to want to exert that much control.

---

Listening to Cascade, Stamper couldn’t help but flash back to the time she and Cascade were driving together to an offsite and a text message had popped up on his screen: “David just exceeded the speed limit,” it read.

“Oh shit, damn that kid,” said Mitch. “Stamper, hold the wheel for a second.” Before she could even reach over he pulled his phone from its holder on the dash and dialed.

“David,” he said to his son, “I saw you were speeding again.” He grinned over at Stamper. She wondered if he was embarrassed at her seeing that he was spying on his son, or if he got a kick out of letting her in on it.

“Dad,” she could hear the young boy’s voice say, “I just pulled into the neighborhood and you know that speed limit changes so fast.”

“You should know it’s there then and slow up ahead of time,” pressed Mitch. “One more time in this cycle and you’ll lose your driving privileges.”

“Fine, fine, Dad, I hate this app!” 

“It just helps you be a safer driver, son. It helps you make good choices. You want to make good choices don’t you?” 

David didn’t respond. 

“David, you want to make good choices, right?” 

“Of course Dad.”

“Good boy, I love you David. Gotta go,” Mitch said as he hung up.

He re-cradled his phone and took the wheel, then grinned over at Stamper: “This is a great app, let’s me track the kids, make sure they’re driving safely. Really helps me be a better parent.”

Stamper didn’t hear a single note of irony in his voice.

Carefully, she replied: “I would have struggled with that when I was a teenager.”

“Oh yeah, me too,” laughed Mitch. “But teens today, they have a higher standard than us. It’s great.” 

---

Stamper must have looked lost in thought, because Cascade snapped his fingers. 

“Hey, Stamper, are you going to answer my question?” he said. “When are you going to get back to me on that?”

“Oh, sorry,” she stammered. “as soon as I have an answer.”

“By noon?” he asked.

“Mitch, as soon as I can! I promise.” 

“Good Stamper, that’s good,” he said. “Keep up the good work. It’s Day One you know?” He grinned at her, turned on the high beams. Then he walked out the door.

---

Keith was poring over the latest data when his Slack icon bounced on his screen. Keith kept all sounds turned off because he didn’t like the interruptions, but he had set up Slack to bounce when certain people messaged him. People like Stamper. So he clicked over to it.

“Hey Keith,” she wrote, “do you have a minute to come over?”

“I’ve got a meeting in 20 minutes,” he replied, “can it wait until after the meeting?” Amazonians were encouraged to guard their time, so Keith felt alright asking. And in the last weeks, he and Stamper had worked together more and more. They were developing a pretty decent working relationship. She liked how data-focused he was. She had told Cascade about him: that she had a guy who was brilliant at unpacking data correlations.

“Now would be better,” she shot back. “It will just take a second.” 

“BRT,” he replied. And he hustled over to her office.

---

“Hey, Stamper,” he smiled as he knocked on her door and waited outside. “Is now still a good time?”

“Of course,” she said, “come in. I was just looking over the daily Pulse Report and I was a little concerned that we might be leading the witness with one question. Do you know which one I’m talking about?”

Keith nodded; of course he knew which one it was. He was in charge of writing their Pulse questions. “I think I do.”

“It feels a little out of keeping with our general approach. What’s the story?”

Keith sighed. He knew this was coming; he just didn’t know it would come so quickly. “Do you want the short answer or the long one?”

Stamper sensed Keith’s unease and she decided to use a light touch. “Which do you want to give me Keith?”

“I think you deserve the long one, but I’ve only got a few minutes. Can I just tell you that I need more data?”

“That’s a start,” laughed Stamper, “but you’re right—I want the full story. What’s your end of the day look like?” And they quickly agreed to get together at 5:00 for a walk. Cascade would just have to get her update tomorrow. 

---

In their own ways, both Stamper and Keith prepared for their afternoon conversation.

Stamper, using the special access allowed to her as an L8, pulled a personal Pulse Profile on Keith ... and she was reassured that her judgments on him were spot on: he was getting the minimum amount of training, which meant that none of his behaviors threw up flags calling for more, and the only taps he was getting were the all-hands taps. Moreover none of his answers to the Daily Pulse questions threw up a single red flag, indicating that he might be unhappy or dissatisfied in his work. And his performance ratings were top notch. There wasn’t a single indicator that he was anything less than an ideal Amazonian.

Keith’s prep was of a different sort: he had to decide exactly how much of his growing concern with their program he was willing to share with Stamper. He had already committed to the “long answer” to her question, so it’s not like he could just explain it away as a careless mistake, but how much of his concern did he let her see? There was a part of him that just wanted to cop to a stupid mistake and promise it wouldn’t happen again. He didn’t like to rock the boat, and Stamper was so devoted to this program. 

BUT ... he’d  been picking up the warning signs for a while now. For weeks or maybe months. When they first expanded the taps, he’d see the chat logs or the after-tap feedback forms, and he could tell that some folks really didn’t like how closely they were being observed or didn’t like being told that they needed “training.” So he’d quietly ask people if they wanted to tell him more about their responses. After all, if there were ways they could improve the program, they wanted to hear it—he wanted the data, so he could develop the best analyses. But people didn’t react well to his follow-up. They didn’t want to complain ... well, they didn’t want to be flagged as complaining.

When Keith popped in to see one guy to ask if he could follow-up on a comment, the guy acted surprised that anyone knew the comment was associated with him. “Wait, I thought those were anonymous!” he said. 

“Not entirely,” Keith had replied, “there’s special access provided to some of the team so we can try to mitigate concerns.”

“Well,  honestly, I think I was just having a bad day,” the guy said. “I don’t have any problem with it now.” 

“Are you sure?” pressed Keith, “It’s okay if you do. We’d love the feedback.” 

“No, it’s cool, I’m good,” he said. “Can we remove my comment? It’s not in my Pulse file is it?“

“Well, I can’t comment on the contents of Pulse files,” replied Keith, repeating the standard line they were required to stick with. “But you can file a request for a Pulse file correction if you’re sure it was a mistake.”

“And draw more attention to it? No thanks! For the record, I have NO PROBLEM with the Human Dynamics program. Can you tell me if it’s in there?” 

“Yeah, I can’t really do that,” replied Keith. And then, in a rare deviation from protocol, he added, “But listen, one small comment won’t really cause a big problem if it’s not repeated. I mean, we understand that people have bad days!” He smiled.

“Okay, cool,” he replied. “Anything else? I mean, I really like most of the ... I don’t know ... direction and information I’ve been getting. It’s very helpful. Truly.”

“Thanks, you’ve been really helpful,” said Keith.

But as he walked out his office door, he heard the guy mutter: “God forbid I cast doubt on the holy Human Dynamics program.” Keith paused. Should he go back? No ... but his antennae were up. He knew Stamper and her boss, Mitch Cascade, were pretty happy with the way the Human Dynamics program was going, and all the data backed that up: people were spending more time on work and they could see marked reductions in the behaviors they were trying to modify. Yet Keith sensed they needed to start paying more attention to the way people felt about the program. But how could he do that if he couldn’t collect data about it? That was the question that sat in the back of his mind when he wrote that foolish question for the Daily Pulse that Stamper wanted to ask him about. But how much of that should he tell Stamper?

That was the fence he was sitting on when 5:00 rolled around and Stamper walked across the courtyard to meet him.

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Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I’ve made up the story and the characters in it. While certain businesses, places, and events are used to orient the reader in the real world, the characters and actions described are wholly imaginary and any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.