by Nick Jacobs

I'm writing this blog from my heavily padded board seat at a table filled with CEO's. In my roll as a President, I sit on a half dozen of these boards. Dark suits, conservative ties, perfect haircuts.

The ritual begins with a gathering of the "Big Dogs" around the coffee service discussing golf.

Interestingly, instead of the normal, rich, Half and Half, there is powdered, trans fat hydrogenated cream in a bowl beside the display of frisbee sized, fruit filled, glazed Danishes. The brewed decaf coffee tastes like the old, individual, powdered Sanka packets served at Wendy's.

Clearly, this may be an unveiled attempt to control Board overhead so as not to interrupt the limited funds flowing toward that annual golf outing.

Sometimes I wish I golfed and smoked. It seems like those guys get to take more breaks and legitimately miss lots more desk work to net-work on the course and at the nineteenth hole.

Behind the chairman's head is a wall covered with oil portraits of "old guys" who have served in some previous leadership capacity with the organization. Seventeen white shirts, one blue, eight maroon neckties, nine solid blue and a Brooks Brothers stripped, one mustache and one beard, are part of the look. Strangely consistent for the past thirty plus years.

Back around the table where I'm seated, the white shirts are blinding me.

The women arrive last, five of them, four staffers and one board member. They are all perfectly groomed and tailored, and they carry themselves with complete self assurance and comfort. Thank goodness for the women. They smile.

As the finance report draws on I hear buzzing in my ears reminiscent of the noise I always heard in my advanced algebra class during my junior year of high school. Then, comes the report on the new budget. We have a slight deficit, but it will be okay, or not.

My Palm TREO, a.k.a., crackberry, gives me a break from the patter as I check out my e-mail, Google the Board Chairman's name, look up a friend in an address search. I catch myself dozing off from my late night and early morning schedule.

The meeting slides along with no real earth shattering information or deep discussions until the administrative assistant says, "Lunch is here."

It is such an amazing journey with all of the power brokers.

Guess it's best to be conservative when you're dealing in such heavy decision making, but it can be soooooooooooooo boring here.

Burp . . . sorry, the Danish didn't agree with me.