I was once introduced to a chef who believes that bacon is a fine ingredient in a dessert.

Such chefs I would describe as beyond cognitive salvation. However, Microsoft appears to suddenly believe that bacon can play an even higher social role: as the commercial equivalent of an aphrodisiac.

For, as the Seattle Times reports, the company has decided that the best way to hire engineers to its Kinect for Windows team is to offer them bacon.

Yes, free bacon.

CC Lara604/Flickr

Engineers, you see, aren't moved by vast package full of stock options, housing allowances, or multiple-hand massages. No, no. You have to appeal to their most fundamental emotions.

So Microsoft has sent a bacon vendor to areas of Seattle where engineers prowl for food. You know, like just outside Amazon's HQ.

You will stunned into beyond a food coma to discover that this is the brainchild of an ad agency. I know this because the hiring hard drive--no, lard drive--for engineers has a slogan: "Wake Up and Smell the Future."

The churlish and the knee-jerking would immediately mutter that Microsoft represents the future about as much as Pat Boone represents contemporary music.

But others might see that the company's bacon grind shows its new, more cuddly side. It understands that it needs to connect with the people. It needs to show its human face.

And what better way to show that than through the intoxicating smell of perfect breakfast meat? We will, I am confident, soon hear stories about an Amazon engineer signing a contract with Microsoft on the street, while under the influence of pig fumes.