Peeling Potatoes Episode 64: Logica Magica.

Friday morning arrived looking slightly damaged.

Fruitloop had the flu. The Mayor felt like a train wreck.

Not FLU, obviously.

FLU is Fruitloop University, a much healthier condition involving dragons, questionable academic standards and, as it turned out, senior political responsibility.

By ten o’clock the bad flu was still hanging around, but Fruitloop University had opened for business. The Mayor was informed that he had to appoint a council.

Four places. Sixteen candidates. No appeals.

The Applicants.

The applications were strong, although perhaps not in the conventional sense.

Ignis the Dragon had abandoned destruction, opened a volcano spa and decided lava was the answer to most things. Sparkles the Unicorn preferred glitter, optimism and rainbows; nobody had ever seen her have a bad day. Andrew the Alien had travelled the universe but still couldn’t understand why humans open the fridge when they already know what is inside. Miranda the Mermaid knew everything happening beneath the sea and wanted meetings held underwater.

George the Garden Gnome knew everybody’s secrets. Sources confidential. Vlad the Vampire had impeccable manners and preferred staff meetings at two in the morning, while Gargle the Zombie never gave up, mostly because he forgot what he was doing.

Then came the supplementary applications: a ghost specialising in invisible operations, a Viking with leadership skills and boats, a robot claiming superior logic, the Coconut Warrior King, the Sock King, the Chicken King, a witch with “technically” excellent problem-solving abilities, a broom applying for aviation because it wanted to become a helicopter, and the Talking Toaster.

The toaster had experience in heated situations.

Naturally.

The Mayor had four chairs. He chose Ignis, then the robot, promptly named Robbie. Miranda came next, followed by the witch, who became Samantha after a brief excursion into Bewitched.

A dragon, a robot, a mermaid and a witch.

Fruitloop University had seen worse.

The Council.

Now they needed jobs.

Miranda became Chief Mysterious Officer.

“What does she do?”

“She thinks outside the aquarium.”

That seemed sufficient.

Samantha became Chief Analyst. She could solve problems, apparently, although her previous employer remained careful about the details. Robbie became Head of Operations: Samantha could analyse things; Robbie could apply logic and get them done.

Whether Samantha could cast a spell on Robbie remained unresolved. Fruitloop wondered what would happen if they fell in love.

The Mayor considered the offspring.

“Magical logic.”

There was a pause.

Logica Magica.

Fruitloop University had acquired a motto.

Ignis became Chief Firefighter. He had entrepreneurial experience, could improvise and tended to finish things. Also, if negotiations failed, he was still a dragon.

Sparkles did not make the council, and the Mayor felt bad about it. She would have brought colour and optimism. She had been around for years. Couldn’t there be a fifth member?

No.

The university could only afford four.

Nothing personal, Sparkles.

The Envelopes.

Once the council had been appointed, Fruitloop produced the envelopes. There was one for Ignis, Robbie, Miranda and Samantha, and one for the Mayor.

Inside each was a button.

No instructions. No explanation. Only a small note:

Press when you are ready.

Nobody knew what would happen.

Fruitloop asked who should go first.

“Ignis.”

Of course Ignis. He was the firefighter. If the button opened a hole in the universe, produced twelve angry chickens or incinerated the council chamber, he had the best chance of dealing with it.

Robbie and Samantha were more dangerous. They might never press theirs at all. They would analyse, calculate, reanalyse, exchange notes, discover another variable and possibly organise a meeting about the button. At which point Ignis would probably press it simply to stop them.

Miranda was different. The Chief Mysterious Officer was hardly going to surrender a perfectly good mystery without a fight.

Then Fruitloop revealed the rules. Pressing the button would produce one of two things: a completely useless superpower, or freedom from cooking, cleaning, laundry and dishes forever.

Fifty-fifty.

Who presses first now?

Still Ignis.

Something useless, the Mayor reasoned, might only be useless because nobody had needed it yet.

Fruitloop moved on before anybody could examine that thought too closely.

Press.

The Mayor pressed his button and gained the ability to locate the exact chair he had last sat on, but only after somebody else had taken it.

A spectacular achievement.

Robbie could calculate the exact number of biscuits in a packet without opening it, which had possibilities during certain meetings. Miranda gained the ability to make any puddle slightly deeper. South African potholes immediately came to mind.

Samantha could turn any broom into a bigger broom.

“Growth potential,” said the Mayor.

Ignis got the housework. Or rather, he got rid of it. His house would now clean itself forever.

Fruitloop stared at the collection of superpowers. The Mayor did the same.

And then Samantha’s enlarged broom found a purpose.

Give it to Gargle. Send Gargle to Ignis’s house. He never gives up.

Fruitloop suggested the ghost instead. Invisible cleaning.

The unsuccessful candidates were creeping back into the organisation.

This was becoming untidy.

In a surprisingly organised sort of way.

The Eyes.

Somewhere during all this, the Mayor remembered an interview question from his hotel years. Human Resources used to hate it.

Go to a concert. Look at the performer’s eyes. What do you see?

There can be lights, noise, jumping, smiling, chaos, thousands of people and a singer apparently throwing everything into the moment. But look closely at the eyes and they can be crystal clear.

Focused.

Underneath the performance there is a programme: timing, cues, choreography, decisions. The audience sees the show. Somebody still has to know what happens next.

The HR manager used to roll her eyes whenever the question appeared.

The Mayor kept asking it.

One More Button.

Fruitloop had one final question.

Forget the useless superpowers. Forget the self-cleaning house. If the Mayor could have a button that did anything, what would he want it to do?

He didn’t think for very long.

“Help me decide that I always have the best team supporting the venture.”

Not the cleverest team. Not the safest. Not even necessarily the people he liked most.

Sparkles had already proved that.

Just the right combination of people.

That answer changed the morning slightly.

Fruitloop had created the exercise without knowing whom the Mayor would choose. Ignis might have been predictable, but the others were not. The questions had to survive whatever choices he made. So did the game.

Only near the end did the Mayor realise what had happened. Sixteen candidates had wandered into Fruitloop University as dragons, mermaids, kings, zombies, household appliances and one broom with unresolved aviation ambitions. Some were rejected. Some were promoted. Some were renamed. One got a bigger broom.

Yet somewhere between choosing four chairs, assigning jobs and deciding who should risk pressing a mysterious button, the nonsense had begun to reveal something rather less silly.

Who do you trust when nobody knows what happens next? Do you choose optimism, expertise, logic, curiosity, action or something you cannot quite define? How much analysis is useful before somebody simply has to press the button? And what happens to the people who do not get a chair?

Perhaps most importantly, what are you actually trying to build when you choose a team?

Fruitloop University had begun the morning as nonsense.

By lunchtime, the nonsense had acquired structure.

Logica Magica.

Perhaps the motto stays.

Although somebody should probably check with Robbie first. Samantha will want to analyse it. Miranda will say nothing.

And Ignis?

He’ll press the button.