WHEN DALLAS Area Rapid Transit sought to keep a federally mandated minimum of minority contracts, they decided to place a classified ad in the jobs section of the Dallas Morning News and asked me to write it, emphasizing the range of contracts they had to offer.

Businesses that pursue work with federally-funded organizations like DART are all too familiar with the pigeon-hole way they’re categorized, as in OSHA’s directory of Standard Industrial Classifications and its rigid protocol of business types with four-digit code numbers. So I felt potential applicants would have fun reading DART’s ad couched in the bureaucratic nomenclature of the SIC:

“DISADVANTAGED, MINORITY- AND WOMAN-OWNED BUSINESS ENTERPRISES: THIS MAY BE OPPORTUNITY KNOCKING AT YOUR

• DOOR FRAMES, METAL #5031

Whatever your company’s Standard Industrial Classification, DART may have a contract for you. We need everything from

• HEAVY CONSTRUCTION #1622-01

and other major, industrial services, all the way down to small but important things like

• NUTS, BOLTS & SCREWS #3452

and, at DART, certified DMWBE vendors earn a place in line. So, if you’re tired of feeling like

• FLOOR COVERING #5713

call us at the phone number below, and don’t let another opportunity go down the

• PORTABLE TOILETS #7359-03″

(Above) The patron saint of laborers, San Isidro. “San Isidro Labrador [Saint Isidore the Farmer] by Joaquin Castañon, 1866, Oil on canvas, San Antonio Museum of Art”, detail