Inside the Tiger

Sharply at 9 AM the team takes their seats around a large, round oak table inside a Civil War-era mansion out on Yerba Buena Island (next door to Treasure Island). The two-story building is revamped, redone, rewired, re-everything. The Hardwood floors are pristine. Oddly, there is very little furniture anywhere to be seen, I have the thought that there is probably a crazed wife who backed up a rented u-haul and emptied the place out. I've seen it before. Nasty business. The facilitator (the politico) steps forward to get us underway. First we deal with unfinished business, i.e. can someone new join the team after missing the first three sessions? Do we need a Team Contract? Is the Session Prep Form useful? Results: A new member will be invited to join us in two weeks; and both the Contract and the Prep Form go back into re-write (yours truly).

Then we plunge into the work there is to be done. Each of us feels the urgency as the clock begins to tick. There are only 15-minute blocks of time for each of us. A large watch is placed in the center of the table.

First up, the business man. Using an old version of the Session Prep Form as an outline, he shows an eagerness to "play" the game, as a Tibetan monk might say it. Most of his time is spent on his realization that he has never in his entire life had goals. A radical notion, I judge. I'd better keep my eye on this guy. His homework for next week is to practice setting goals.

Next up, the attorney/politician (our host). He shares that he lives alone in this big, rented house. As he talks, an elderly Asian woman seems to appear out of thin air to serve us fresh-baked pastries and coffee along with her lovely smile. Our host turns out to be a rather brilliant man: Harvard Law, Rhodes Scholar, West Point, and former mayor of a large community here on our bay. Seems he's stuck career-wise and pretty much otherwise-wise as well. He has no idea what to do next. He's been thinking about getting a job. He's also been thinking about going into business producing handmade mandolins. I'm not kidding. He's gone so far as to have created a business plan.

Next up, is the laid-off corporate whiz-kid. Smart and a real go-getter. I'll bet that he lands a job before this team dissolves in mid-May. He does seem to be somehow robotic. My initial take is that he's probably an alien from another galaxy. He mentions, in passing, that he likes the martinis at the House of Prime Rib. I make a note to buy him such a beverage while we are, so to speak, here "inside the Tiger" together. Just to pick his carefully wired brain.

Next session meets in North Beach at the home of the publisher. Ciao