‘WE’RE ON TOP OF THE WORLD’
Observation deck offers chance to be 1,000 feet above city
The white-haired business executive sported a slightly-askew green bow tie, a cocktail, and a polished delivery.
“We’re on top of the world!” he bragged to a colleague.
The two executives chuckled and looked out the window from the 94th floor of the John Hancock Building, also known as 875 N. Michigan Ave., in Chicago. Its observation deck, 360 Chicago, overlooks the city’s famed Magnificent Mile, offering 360-degree views of the skyline, the Lake Michigan shoreline, and the world’s horizons.
“On top of the world, indeed!” joked the other exec, leaning back to get a better view through the window.
Neither exec noticed the double meaning of their boastful exclamation. Not only were they on top of the world, literally, at 1,000 feet above Chicago. They also live on top of the world, thanks to the vantage point of their privileged lifestyle.
I was invited by my cousin to attend the swanky cocktail reception, hosted by a California-based engineering firm. In a roomful of suits, ties and dress shoes, I wore jeans, gym shoes and a leather jacket. I dressed for walking through the Windy City, not for corporate chit-chat.
“We finally turned around our bottom line in Q3,” one exec told another.
It didn’t take long before I gravitated toward the hired help, mostly the servers of hors d’oeuvres who roamed around the room. We talked the same language. One woman said she was a single mother who took three buses to get to her job. I admired her hustle to make a buck.
“What do you have there?” one exec asked her, interrupting our conversation.
He pointed to her platter of mini beef Wellington sandwiches and told me, “You have to try one of these.”
I smiled at the female server and let her get back to her job.
“And you are?” another exec asked an attractive young woman sitting at a table.
The woman wasn’t a guest at the event. She was lead singer of the Gatsby
Gang Jazz Band, which entertained the guests. The three-piece group plays jazz and swing songs from the Great Gatsby era for corporate events and private parties.
“I’m with the band,” she said, nodding to her band mates.
The woman, Lauren Verhel, told me she lives in Minnesota. She traveled to Chicago for the party, one of many gigs she’s played across the country.
“Oh, I thought you were with us,” the exec told Verhel.
From a nearby table, I couldn’t help but overhear their exchange, including the exec’s unintended emphasis on the word “us.”
The singer isn’t an employee of the exec’s company, or a working professional in his industry. Nor is she a member of his high-upper-class social status, I’m guessing.
You’re likely not either. I certainly am not.
I came to this realization at my table for one. I stood out like a guy wearing jeans, gym shoes and a leather jacket at an upscale cocktail reception. The only other male guest not wearing a suit jacket walked past me with a friendly smile.
“I’m glad I’m not the only one here who dressed casual,” he told me.
As he left the room, he gave me a peace sign. I smiled back and continued to take my first notes for a column I didn’t plan to write: “An observation deck high above the clouds of 360-degree self-awareness.”
I was keenly aware of my social status. I looked out to see the ends of the earth from my perch at 360 Chicago. I stared down to watch vehicles creeping along Lake Shore Drive. I took a photos to capture the moment and to share on social media.
While writing a Facebook post, another exec strolled by to introduce himself. Someone told him
I’m a newspaper columnist.
“Be careful what you say to this guy,” he joked with a laugh to another exec.
I laughed, too. I hear that a lot.
“Don’t worry, I’m not here on business,” I replied.
I meant it. I didn’t even bring my notebook. Yet there I was, instinctively writing parts of this column on my iPhone, making judgmental observations from the observation deck.
To be clear, I don’t begrudge the business executives’ income level and related social status. I’m sure they earned it through decades of hard work, smart decisions, and wise investments. And through their polished networking skills, which I watched firsthand. They worked the room effortlessly. I envied their moxie.
I should have asked a few of them about their million-dollar business deals. Instead, I gravitated toward other questions.
“When did you first know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?” I asked the exec who sported the tilted bow tie. Without a pause he replied, “I was 13.” He started his own landscaping business. The next year, he hired his first two employees, he said.
Before I could finish my follow-up question, he darted away toward new guests. There were new big-wigs to schmooze. New business deals to land. I returned to my table and later chatted with the servers and the singer.
After a few more hors d’oeuvres, I realized that all of us in the room were conducting business, just in different ways. The self-absorbed millionaire executive. The demure server. The talented singer. The eavesdropping writer.
All of us at that moment were “on top of the world.”
I stared out the window and thought of one of my favorite quotes from “The Great Gatsby.” It came from Nick Carraway, a character who’s an outsider, not only at a party he attended in the novel, but, more importantly, an outsider in a wealthy, ritzy world.
“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
jdavich@post-trib.com