Cab Driver: “$250,000 for an apartment, and what for! You should be gettin’ two places, a basement, a parking space for $250,000. And I don’t want no damn apartment condo association telling me what to do. I remember this area used to not be pricey, now things are going up and up and up. What’s with all the construction? This ain’t construction, this is destruction.”- In a cab on Armitage and Sheffield

 Overheard in Chicago

Consulting can take you anywhere - the Loop, New York, London and even Evanston. As per my normal routine, I took the morning copy of the Red Eye from the guy at the Armitage Station and proceeded into the station. My routine changed when I went up the northbound stairs instead of the loop-bound side.

The Purple Express came after two northbound Brown lines. I got into the front car, caught up on recent news, checked the weather on my BlackBerry and turned up the tunes on the iPod a little louder than normal. The screeching of the train was louder than what I am used, especially as we were flying through Uptown and Rogers Park.

After what seemed like an eternity, we arrived at Davis. I shuffled out of the car and onto street level. At the corner of Davis and Sherman, I picked up a hot drink from Argo Tea and proceed into the Rotary Center building.

Security stopped me and gave me the second degree, stating that I had to sign in if I was doing “labor”. I told them that computers are not that dangerous and that there was little to no chance that I would be doing any manual labor. I signed my name and company in the contractor’s book, got a lame stick-on security “badge” that was printed with an Avery label and proceeded up the elevator.

People in Evanston do not know basic elevator rules. I entered the elevator along with two women of shall we say large frame, an elderly man with a cane and two other random people. When the two women pressed the “2″ button, I began to scowl. They couldn’t have taken the stairs up one flight? After they got off at the second floor and people proceeded to reshuffle, the elderly man hobbled, almost fell over but remained upright because he invaded my personal space to stabilize himself with the rail in the elevator. He pressed the number “6″. Why didn’t he kindly ask to have someone press the button for him? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

After some consulting and telling my client not to go with a software add-on suite that would cost $1,000+ and reduce PDF sizes on their multifunction printer by, oh, 10%, I decided that I needed some lunch.

After lunch at the local Potbelly, I went back to work. I spent the reminder of the day on the phone and helped some clients out. Oh wow, 5PM. Time to bill some hours to people and head home. At 5:33PM I was on the Davis platform waiting for a loop-bound Purple Line. The CTA conductor was amazing. He drove the train at record speed; I only got 16 items finished on today’s crossword puzzle.

Anyone get 25 across? Early clothing source, 7 letters?

Over the weekend Andy and I went to Roscoe Village for cupcakes. Just as in the Saturday Night Live digital short Lazy Sunday, we found a place for kick butt cupcakes: Dinkel’s Bakery in Roscoe Village.

I doubted that life existed up there and Andy was determinted to prove me wrong so we took the Brown Line up past Addison. When we found the Starbuck’s on Lincoln Ave, I let my guard down; the words “Starbuck’s” and “Lincoln Ave” were familiar. A few dollars and a milk chug later, I was satisifed.

Every weekday, from 4:00 PM until 5:30 PM, thousands of suburban people flood into Union and Ogilvie Station from the loop to head back to smaller towns outside of Chicago. According to the 2005 audited finical statement from Metra, more than 68.6 million people rode the rails in 2005. That’s over 243,000+ people a day counting only “work days” in the year.

What do they do when they get off at the Metra station? Drive, drive and more driving. They drive their cars to their homes and park in a three car garage. So sad – they will never know the joy of getting a text message on the BlackBerry while commuting out of the loop, stopping into Kinkade’s for a drink and then going for a walk with your Trixie.

I don’t envy them at all.

 Amanda is a 25 year-old marketing manager for a major firm in downtown Chicago. She resides around the quaint intersection of Sheffield and Webster in the Village.

7:10 AM Wake up, shower, change, change again, change purses.

7:50 Pickup wheat bagel with easy cream cheese, bottle of water at CBA on Armitage.

8:10 Wait for inbound Brown Line train.

8:20 Continue to wait for inbound Brown Line train.

8:22 Crowd onto train. Scout for cute Chads that might be seen later around Franklin and Madison.

8:40 Pickup a Venti at Starbuck’s in order to get charged for the day.

9:00 Shop for purses on eLUXURY.com and nordstrom.com.

9:20 Answer some phone calls, email back the graphic designer telling him to go with the blue color scheme since it is more “fresh” for spring.

10:30 Email the girls to see where lunch will happen.

11:45 Meet up with Veronica for a Caesar wrap tortilla (easy dressing) at Goodwin’s.

1:00 PM Marketing meeting. Color schemes: blue vs pink (they don’t get it, blue is the new pink). I took some notes on my Steno pad, but was distracted by Brian the majority of meeting. My notes consisted of ”blue > pink” and ”Amanda + Brian + BMW”. 

3:00 Marketing meeting. Web design demo. The web designeres showed up some new mockups of the website. All in all good, but how come it took them a week to do it!

4:30 Email the girls about getting dinner and drinks.

6:00 Leave the office, laugh at the suburban people that are rushing over the river to catch their trains to head back to small towns that I have never heard of.

7:30 Meet up with Jenny and Ashley at Enoteca Piattini for a light dinner and half price wine.

7:46 Give Veronica advice to take the $24,000 position at Deloitte since it will get her foot in the door.

8:20 Greg drives by our outside table in his Mercedes.

8:23 Greg parks on Bissell, comes up to our table with his (fake) platinum blonde girlfriend of the week and attempts to be social.

8:30 Order another glass of white wine - hey, it’s half price.

9:00 Debate about going to Kinkade’s for another drink.

9:10 At Kinkade’s for another drink.

9:15 Scope out the main floor, downstairs, upstairs, upper back.

9:20 Giggle and flirt with a few Chads to make Greg jealous.

9:30 Walk up Sheffield and head home to get a good night sleep for tomorrow’s marketing meetings.

Trix-a-tastic.