There's this therapeutic exercise where you imagine that you're being controlled by a committee meeting, and you're supposed to conceptualize your inner dialogue as participants in the meeting. There are some stock ideas for this (managers, firefighters, caretakers, etc.) but I think my company (in my mind, it's a business meeting) is really dysfunctional. My meeting features:
- A visionary CEO who has little patience for details and who would rather be in Aspen.
- A CFO who embezzles lunch money to feel alive.
- Dave from Creative, who has sold out and resents everyone who hasn't.
- Lrrr, also from Creative, who will NEVER sell out and hates this job as much as he hates every human; he has no sense of perspective or proportion and demands unlimited creative license regardless of whether the result is germane to the business. But he's also really talented.
- Jack from Marketing, the only unequivocally talented and competent person in the company. He puts the best face on everything and works whatever he gets from Creative to the max.
- Gareth from Operations. This guy does not care about his job and sometimes spends a whole afternoon just dicking around on his phone instead of solving problems. He is afraid of asking questions because people will find out that he is stupid.
- Billy, a five-year-old boy who, as part of a misguided initiative, attends every meeting to remind the board how far it has strayed from innocence and goodness. He is probably going to be traumatized by all of this one day, but for now he just interjects a sense of ignorant whimsy into proceedings.
- Larry, from Legal. Very anxious, convinced everything is an existential threat.
- Bob from accounting. He is ready to retire and slowly disintegrate on a beach.
- Doug from Fire Suppression. His job is to put out fires, but fire is also awesome. So, he's conflicted.
I am not clear on whether this 37-year-old version of Inside Out is gonna help me yet, but I'm having fun at least.
