Picking the mayor's brain

We spent weeks practicing asking practical and probing interview questions for our big field trip to meet the mayor.

Practice makes perfect and we want to be perceived as fully engaged listeners.

Questions are meant to be asked with intention. To fuel further curiosity. To prompt follow-up questions. To offer additional insight.

I worked so hard on helping my student formulate his question to be asked.

A nervous and sensitive dude, he wanted to be considerate and ask a question that hadn’t been asked before.

After all, the mayor must have been asked it all…he must be bored of redundant career based questions…

“He answers the phone from the citizens all day for crying out loud…Surely he must be sick of repeating his plans and ideas”

What a thoughtful approach to learning more about the big man in the suit.

You’ve got the shovel...let’s dig deeper.  

“I really want to know his favorite color, but I know I’ll only get a one word response. That isn’t probing enough…I bet his favorite color is blue anyways. I like blue and he probably does too…Why ask a question I already know the answer to?”

Back to the drawing board.

“Everyone loves to talk about their personal hobbies and free time” I told him. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the mayor, or your neighbor, or the man sitting next to you on the bus.”

“That’s it, Mr. Tommy…I am going to ask him about what he does on his weekends, and surely he will have a lengthy answer for that...he’s got to have an interesting answer...mayors don’t work on the weekends.”

Word traveled fast of our field trip and the field trip caravan grew by the day.

Parents, teachers, and even administration all wanted to accompany us on our trip to the mayor’s office.

Everyone must have probing questions for the mayor, it seemed.

“What are you going to do about the potholes plaguing the alley on Sacramento?” a parent called out.

“My water bill is almost double what it was this time last year…are you working towards a resolution for our heightened taxes? Are they increasing next year too?...you told us they wouldn’t” exasperated another.

Without so much as an answer to the first, “There’s a group of loud and obnoxious kids that hang out on my street corner, how are you going to keep them away?”

Potholes, water taxes, and unruly local kids. OH MY.

I was not envious of the mayor’s position. I didn’t even know the poor guy had pothole issues on his already seemingly full plate.

After delivering some carefully constructed and politically correct responses (this guy is good) it was show time. We had the floor.

“What do you order from McDonalds?” one of the kids asked.

VALID.

He prefers White Castles to McDonalds. He goes with the number 1 and a side of chicken rings. As a castle connoisseur, myself, I like his style.

“What are you doing about global warming?” one of the kids shrieked.

Uh…also VALID.

Just because the mayor isn’t necessarily on the forefront of our world’s climate change…the guy should still be recycling at home in his personal life, right??

“Where do you buy your shoes??...Those don’t look like Jordan’s”

Honestly, super valid. Although the mayor isn’t cool enough to rock a pair of Jordan’s; his pointed toe, patent leather, spiffy shined DSW dress loafers told us that he’s a capable guy.

Then,

The moment of truth.

My buddy’s turn.

“Come on you got this you got this. You got this. We spent a week on this. What do you do in your free time? You got this. Ask the free time one. You know what to do, I know you know what to do…we worked so hard on this.” My thoughts rattled and reverberated inside my brain: “You. Got. This.”

He made his way up to the podium. I sat on the edge of my seat.

He took a careful look at his note card and then turned it over. Uh oh.

He looked that man dead in the face. Good eye contact. This might work.

He took a moment so as to almost gather all his thoughts and he simply asked:

“Are you happy?”

How stinkin profound.

The kid sat there and listened to the mayor answer questions from a tough crowd. He saw how busy the office was when we took our tour. He listened intently as the mayor entertained a few off the wall questions from special ed while his thought and priorities were probably elsewhere. He connected some dots.

Maybe the mayor’s job isn’t as glamorous as we originally had thought. Maybe there’s more to being the mayor than a pointed pair of dress shoes and sharp tie. Maybe his job is actually kinda…hard at times?? Maybe even…dare I say…slightly undesirable?

Leave it to him to wonder how the mayor feels on the inside among the chaos of potholes and water taxes and special ed field trips in the middle of the day.

Leave it to him to care that the mayor is happy in his current stressful position.

Leave it to him to really probe.

You could tell the mayor had never been asked that one on the spot before, but you could read the impact of this question in the expression on his face.

“I am happy to be here with you” he responded.

Me too, buddy.