The Dallas Rule
The Dallas “Metroplex” is not like any city I’ve seen. The airport is easily the size of Boston itself, and that is just a preview of the spectacle to come. No matter where one drives, a skyline looms somewhere in the distance. At first, I thought it was the same skyline; presumably downtown Dallas. But as my boss and I traveled further and further across the vast swath of Northern Texas over which the city splays, it became clear that every skyline was its own city.
I use the term city loosely, because in fact these consolidated clusters of corporate construction were created prior to the needs of the communities they serve, built across dozens of acres with more of an eye towards the future of the business’ expanding empires than the subtleties of urban design. Like plastic flowers in a dry dusty vase, these skylines sit indifferent to the typically life-sustaining urban features like apartment buildings, taxis, grocery stores and corner delis.
Beginning in the morning, these cities suck in their collective gut and draw to them people from all corners of the Metroplex. At 5pm, Dallas undoes its belt and the people flow back to their homes on impossibly large highways under impossibly stark sunsets. Caught in the ebb and flow are large number of the young analysts in the business and financial services industry, of which I am now a part.
It was in this flow that I discovered the Dallas Rule: on any given weeknight, at least one of my dozen-or-so friends in the consulting and finance industry is in Dallas. The implications are that no matter what you’re working on, every night in Dallas has the potential to be epic.
The catch to this rule is that most of the time you would never even know that your former roommate might be sleeping four rooms down at the Westin, since it’s not like we’re checking in with each other every time we travel. Unless it comes up some other way, you’re never going to find out that they were there when you were.
This week, the stars aligned and one of my best friends from college not only was in Dallas (which, as i have demonstrated, is not actually a large coincidence, given the Dallas Rule), but we also knew of each other’s presence and were able to sneak an extra night in at the tail of our business trips. It was thus that we found ourselves in a Pro Bass Shop, shopping for camouflage hats to wear to the Texas Stampede Rodeo and out in to the streets of the “real” City of Dallas.
Suffice to say, I spent a week in Dallas last night.