• Your car has at least 30 bumper stickers on it, including “start seeing bikes” and “keep your rosaries off my ovaries” and “Wellstone!”
• You have a shiny new mac laptop and an iPhone with a $100 a month plan, but have trouble getting the rent check in on time.
• You believe you have eaten or drank something ironically.
• You don’t understand what the word ironically means, but you use it at least once in every conversation.
• You think a bike is a valid main form of transportation when it’s 10 degrees out.
• You can’t even imagine that someone would own a gun that isn’t either a gang member or a deer hunter.
• When they seal coated Hennepin, it was the closest thing you’ve ever come to a gravel road.  You had trouble driving biking on it for the first couple weeks.
• You’re male and your pants are skin tight, black, and only go down to mid-shin.
• You have full sleeve tattoos and a toddler.
• You live in Minneapolis and know how to parallel park.
• You love the Walker Art Museum and get violently angry if anyone criticizes it in any way.
• You wear bug eye sunglasses.  And are male.  And they have gold frames.
• You understand the conditional no-left turn signs on Hennepin and Lyndale.
• As best you remember, Obama got about 70% of the popular vote.
• You get excited at the state fair when you see a real live cow.
• You forget that the houses around Lake of the Isles are unreasonably large.
• You believe bicycles always have the right of way.  Even if they’re running a stop sign, going the wrong way, down the center stripe of a one way street, in rush hour.
• You have gone more than six months without going outside the 494 / 694 loop.
• You consider Burnsville to be rural.
• You believe free wifi is a human right.

Top Ten Things You Shouldn’t Say at a Consulting Interview

10. I’m a t-shirt and jeans kind of person.
9. Do you pay overtime?
8. I hate flying.
7. I’m useless without ten hours of sleep a night.
6. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
5. Do you cover rental cars for collision?
4. Stanford taught me that working in teams is great for slackers.
3. I think three letter acronyms are for people too stupid to remember whole phrases.
2. Two words: family first.
1. Call it what you want, it still means firing people.

Top Ten Things a Consultant Shouldn’t Tell a Client
10. That was my first guess as well, but then I really thought about it.
9. You should see the hotel I’m staying at.
8. Hey, I just realized that I was in third grade when you started working here.
7. I like this office space. I’ll have them put me in here when you’re gone.
6. My rental car looks nicer than that junker you’re driving.
5. Sure it’ll work; I learned it in business school.
4. So what do you need me to tell you?
3. Of course it’s right; the spreadsheet says so.
2. I could just tell you the answer, but we’re committed to a three month project.
1. What are you, stupid?

Top Ten Ways To Know You’re Dating/Married To A Consultant
10. Referred to the first month of your relationship as a “diagnostic period”.
9. Talks to the waiter about process flow when dinner arrives late.
8. Takes a half-day at the office because, “Sunday is your day.”
7. Congratulates your parents for successful value creation.
6. Tries to call room-service from the bedroom.
5. Ends any argument by saying, “let’s talk about this off-line.”
4. Celebrates anniversary by conducting a performance review.
3. Can’t be trusted with the car – too accustomed to beating up rentals.
2. Valentine’s Day card has bullet points.
1. Refers to lovemaking as a “win-win”.

Top Ten Ways to Know You’ve Got the Consulting Bug
10. Can’t stop using words that don’t exist.
9. Worried that he who dies with the most frequent-flyer miles wins.
8. Use so much jargon in conversation, friends think you’re speaking a foreign language.
7. Constant urge to give advice on subjects you know nothing about.
6. Always-hyphenating-words-that-don’t-need-to-be-hyphenated.
5. Keep seeing bullet points everywhere.
4. Can fit the thematic undercurrents of War and Peace into a two-by-two matrix.
3. Tired of having a social life beyond work.
2. A two-page story in Business Week is all it takes to make you an expert.
1. Firmly believe that an objective viewpoint means more than any real work experience.

Top Ten Things You’ll Never Hear from a Consultant
10. You’re right; we’re billing way too much for this.
9. Bet you I can go a week without saying “synergy” or “value-added”.
8. How about paying us based on the success of the project?
7. This whole strategy is based on a Harvard business case I read.
6. Actually, the only difference is that we charge more than they do.
5. I don’t know enough to speak intelligently about that.
4. Implementation? I only care about writing long reports.
3. I can’t take the credit. It was Ed in your marketing department.
2. The problem is, you have too much work for too few people.
1. Everything looks okay to me.

Are You A Prostitute Or A Consultant?
1. You work very odd hours.
2. You are paid a lot of money to keep your client happy.
3. You don’t necessarily have to put out to be good at your job.
4. You develop a close relationship with your co-workers.
5. You spend a majority of your time in a hotel room.
6. You charge by the hour but your time can be extended.
7. You are not proud of what you do.
8. You wear out shoes quickly.
9. Creating fantasies for your clients is rewarded.
10. It’s difficult to have a family.
11. The client can roll you off.
12. You have no job satisfaction.
13. You are embarrassed to tell people what you do for a living.
14. People ask you, “What do you do?” and you can’t explain it.
15. Your client pays for your hotel room plus your hourly rate.
16. Your client always wants to know how much you charge and what they get for the money.
17. When you are with the client reality is unimportant. The important thing is how well you can draw the client into the fantasy you are creating.
18. When you leave to go see a client, you look great, but return looking like hell (compare your appearance on Monday AM to Friday PM).
19. You are rated on your “performance” in an excruciating ordeal.
20. Even though you get paid the big bucks, it’s the client who walks away smiling.
21. The client always thinks your “cut” of your billing rate is higher than it actually is, and in turn, expects miracles from you.
22. All of your colleagues profess to be the best, so you never really feel adequate

23. Your number one option for personal security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.

That one, though probably the most useful and applicable in most cases, admittedly gets a bit lost among the other ones that are more towards the practical side once that has failed, like this one:

27. Regardless of whether justified of not, you will feel sad about killing another human being. It is better to be sad than to be room temperature.

A lot more truth than you find in the standard TV cop drama five minutes left until the top of the hour gun fight to wrap things up quickly scene.