Cashback Stacheback

As Lucile Ball taught me at a young age: if you make a ridiculous plan, it’s best executed with friends. Around the same time, I also learned that baking soda and vinegar make a beautiful mess.

I hope everyone has the opportunity to have at least one workplace where they really get along with their coworkers. I’ve had a couple, but the most recent was a contractor position at Bing Cashback.

Although we supported a Microsoft product, we worked at a customer service outsourcing center. Bing Cashback is a shopping rewards program was a shopping rewards program. Basically, if people bought products through the website and didn’t get their rewards, we’d credit their account.

This was not a very stressful job, and my coworkers were about as laid back as people get.  When you don’t do face-to-face customer service, the high personal appearance standards traditionally enforced within the customer service industry can be ignored. This vacuum of personal appearance expectations is the baking soda of this story.

The vinegar is two trends popularized by the Internet: the ironic mustache (sometimes done without irony by misguided hipsters and dads) and combining multiple fast food menu items into a single dish. While KFC generated attention for its brand with the Double Down, it’s unacknowledged predecessor is certainly the McGangBang.

Not Usually Considered Inpirational

(Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/atablefortwo/)

In case you’re wondering, a McGangBang is constructed from a McDouble and a McChicken from McDonalds. To make your own McGangBang:
1 – Peel the McDouble apart between it’s two beef patties.
2 – Place the entire McChicken sandwich on top of one of the halves.
3 – Place the other McDouble half, atop the McChicken so that there is a beef patty and bun on each side of the McChicken.
4 – Your McGangBang is complete. Take a bite.
Eat Me Daily has a nice compendium on the McGangBang.

The Cashback Stacheback Competion Rules

1. Any man in the office is eligible to compete.
2. Participants will shave clean on an agreed day: known as the “Grow Day.”
3. Participants will not shave their mustaches clean from the Grow Day until the agreed shaving day: known as the “Reveal Day.”
4. The Reveal Day will include a Reveal Day Event known as a “Mustache Parade.”
5. During Reveal Day the competition will be judged by the Quality Assurance Manager.
6. The QA Mgr will judge the mustaches for greatness in the following categories: epicness, iconigraphicness, and face-appropriateness.
7. The prize to the winner of the QA Mgr’s judging will be the utmost respect of all the participants, followed by a round of glad-handing.
8. Any man who pledges to participate but shaves before the Reveal day will have to eat the Sandwich of Shame.
9. The Sandwich of Shame will be made by opening a McDonalds McDouble between it’s beef patties to insert a Jack-in-the-Box Chicken Sandwhich, a Taco Bell Fresco Taco, and a pouring from a bowl of Wendy’s Chili before the top section of the McDouble is restored as a lid.
10. Any man willing to eat the Sandwich of Shame has suffered enough, and will not be ridiculed further for his premature shaving.

Growing the Cashback Stacheback

The mustache growing season was a lot of fun, particularly with team members who had not grown a beard or mustache before. We took pictures every few days to document everyone’s progress.

The Sandwich of Shame

Tragedy struck in week two. Our friend and manager Andy had shaved after a mere 8 days at the behest of his fiance. She “couldn’t stand the sandpaper face.”

After a day of vehement disapproval from the remaining participants, we gave Andy a chance at redemption: eating the Sandwich of Shame.

That day for lunch, we dispersed to different fast food restaurants to gather it’s ingredients and reassembled in the breakroom to watch the creation of the beast. With Promethean interest, we looked on as Andy poured chili on a taco on a Chicken Sandwich inside a Double Cheeseburger. When he topped the monstrosity with the McDouble’s second patty and bun, there were cheers or joy. It was beautiful. The sandwich we’d only vaguely imagined stood manifest before our manly eyes.

Smushing the tower of food to a more mouth-size height, Andy opened wide and took a bite. Without a wince or complaint he chewed and swallowed.

He took another, more ferocious bite, and another.

“How is it?” the crowd asked. “It’s actually pretty good…[another bite] well, let’s say not bad.” Everyone smiled and laughed. Though it sounded completely gross, most of us certainly wondered “What did it really taste like?”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
That’s when the truly amazing began to occur, we realized that Andy was experiencing something none of us would. Not only was he honorably devouring the Sandwich of Shame, but he was also going where no man had gone before. Andy was a palette pioneer, an epicurean explorer, a culinary conquistador.

In the 3 minutes it took him to level that leviathan, he transformed from pariah to patriarch. During that lunch, and for the rest of the time he was our boss, Andy was a hero.

The Taste of Victory and Regained Respect

There were other heros as well. Ashkan’s thick and full “Mario” mustache, Matt’s late but effective entry into the competition, and Joey’s gung-ho grow are some of my favorites. In the end it was Thom’s double racing-stripe fu-manchu that best embodied the audacity and absurdity we were trying to capture. He was declared the winner. On myFlickr you can find a full set of both the Growth Progress and The Sandwich of Shame. Special thanks to Dan who took most of the pics and participated. Sadly, the photos of him during this time are lost to antiquity.

Finally, this week marks the one year anniversary of Cashback Stacheback Competition: Guys, thanks for all the memories.

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