Face Time, or Fake Time?

2022 Commentary: This post, from 2020, describes a point during my third year at Nortel, when I began to move out of a state of relative "equilibrium" in my life and career. So far, I had been able to sustain a conventional attitude and position towards career and all that it means. It was the year 1990-1991, and was the 10-year mark since the Anderson experience. I was not yet aware of an invisible boulder - that would come decades later. But I did become aware of other things in my world, and the world in general, that did not add up. The Anderson situation was primarily about the tendency of powerful institutions to cover up their mistakes, unethics, and even, crimes. At Nortel, I could not unsee what happened at the fax machine that time, as I observed Don D's reaction to a fax addressed to our HR department. People were not being treated right. And nobody cared. And an unraveling of society itself was a forgone conclusion. 

I wonder how many people fancy themselves to be a "Neo" in their world? I'm referring, of course, to the main character in the film serial, The Matrix. Neo was a regular, average guy, that couldn't shake an impression, that something was wrong in the world. He couldn't quite place it, and nobody else was having the same experience.  It's easy to question one's own sanity, when you see some things clearly, that others don't. The third year of my Fortune 500 experience knocked me out of equilibrium. The world was ceasing to be a place where good attitudes and practices were rewarded. Indeed . . . I became more aware that something is wrong. 

My third MLDP rotation send me to Atlanta. It was an experience that I did not enjoy much. I was not particularly fond of Atlanta itself, and had the unfortunate timing of arriving in the middle of the Braves' period of baseball dominance.  I was in the Transmission Division of the company. We manufactured the nodes in a telecom network, that connected all of the big switches together. Our devices would be placed along the strands of telephony lines, to re-strengthen and re-transmit digital signals. These were called "Transport" devices. And we also built equipment that collocated with the switches, connecting them to the greater telecom network. These were called "Access" devices.

I was in the Sales Operations Unit. There were about ten of us in the group, and our job was to monitor the overall performance of the sales function, in selling Transmission equipment. We had some engineers, a few product guys, and some Sales veterans. I was responsible for rendering monthly reports and forecasts, that were a major deliverable in the monthly operations meetings of the division, attended by Senior VPs of the company.

My boss was a hard-working guy, that I will name Don D. He was a devoted family man; the prototypical unsung hero of American capitalism, that spends every waking minute at work, so that his family can have nice things. His two kids were early-elementary-aged at the time. It was impossible for me to get to work before he did, and to stay later than him (because I tried). I was constantly aware that he was missing his kids' growing up.

His boss was more of the same, many factors over. I'll call him AKA. Don D had a philosophy, never to leave the office if AKA was still there. And AKA was always there. Don D, AKA, and I were all within a year or two of each other, in age.

After I had been there about nine months, and the end of my rotation was coming around, I was standing near the fax machine, as Don D came around to pick up some printing he had just sent over. A fax was arriving, from the Human Resources office at headquarters in Nashville. The heading was such that it got Don D's attention. It was the results of a survey that showed the correlation of hours spent at work, with the likelihood that someone would get promoted and/or would get a raise.

The summary page came through. It was very clear that there is no statistical correlation.

Don D said, in a rare moment of candor with me "So I'm here working my butt off, and it won't do me any good?"

I took this to heart. My casual approach to life was being affirmed as the way to go. It turns out that face time at work is actually "fake time." When you work so sacrificially for an employer that will cashier you any time it suits them, without any resort to loyalty or fairness, you are cheating yourself and your family. And cheating is cheating, as much so with an employer as it is with a lover.

Something never felt right to me, about the way we rewarded and protected these hard-working but directionless people like EX in Texas, and Don D in Atlanta.  If character and creativity were supposed to be the wave of the future, in management careers (as we had all been told for years), then I was going to need to begin seeing some of it.

These were the conditions feeding into the culture, that never got addressed by culture, that accumulated into a powder keg as society lurched headlong into the 21st Century.

Next: Some Fudged Numbers


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