My 9/11
Today marks the 11th Anniversary of the September
11th attacks. Over the
years you have heard stories of great courage inside the Towers and the aircraft
all the way down to simpler sacrifices of serving bottled water to those
covered in ash. It was a horrific
day, but a day that brought out the best in people. I unfortunately had contact with the one person that it didn’t.
2001 had already been a year of change for me. I was breaking free from a long term on
again, off again relationship. It
was doing neither of us any good.
At work, my long time nemesis had somehow become my boss. Life likes to mock me like that. I was learning to deal
with both. Simpler problems for a
simpler time. As springtime arrived
things began to look up. The
Yankees were back, coming off 3 World Series wins in a row. I had just had season tickets
transferred into my name and was looking forward to all the games I would be
going to. Secondly, spring is also
time for romance. I had met an
attractive young blond and we immediately hit it off. I was however 12 years her senior. Her energy and undaunted outlook in life revitalized me. I asked her where she had been all my
life…she said grade school.
It was a very good summer with weekends alternating between
the Hamptons and Yankee Stadium.
Roger Clemens was setting strike out records every time he pitched, and I wanted to be there to root him on.
When it appeared he was poised to pass another Hall of Famer on the All
Time Strike Out list, my friend, who shared the tickets, and I kept those for ourselves. Soon it was Sept 3rd, Labor
Day, the unofficial end of the summer.
Unfortunately what did become official that day was the end of my summer
romance. I was caught off guard. I did not think this was a seasonal relationship…and
it hit me hard. Well, I still had
my Yankees and the Roger Clemens chase to take her off my mind. The next home game he would be pitching
in was Monday, September 10th and we had our tickets. That morning I packed my jersey and a
change of clothes and headed to work.
That day was on again off again rain. The Yankee game was in question. Some people would head to the Stadium optimistic. We waited until we got word. Tonight’s Yankee game has been
postponed due to rain. That night my friend
and I looked at the weather forecast. Tuesday, September 11th looked like
a perfect fall day. We didn’t have
tickets, but we decided we would go to the game.
Tuesday started like Monday, except my bag was already
packed with my Yankee gear from the day before. I got to work a little early, around 8am, since I knew I
might skip out around 4pm to head up to the Stadium. I went through my work e-mails to see how my day was going
to play out. I then headed to the
local deli to get a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich. I returned and launched AOL to read
some of the news as I devoured my breakfast. Shortly before 9am I received an updated AOL news alert. “Small plane hits World Trade Center”. It reminded me of back in 1945 when an
army B-25 hit the Empire State Building.
Of course, it was in a dense fog…today there was not a cloud in the sky. As most, I figured it was just someone
who must have lost control of his plane.
It made me think of the movie Airport 75, when an older gentleman had a
heart attack flying a single engine plane and collided with a jumbo jet. Maybe the big screen was repeating
itself here in real life. AOL soon
refreshed and a photo of the damage was attached. This was no small plane.
I left my office to head to the conference room to turn on
the TV. As I arrived, it was already
on and a crowd had formed. We
discussed the outline of the plane on the outside of the building. You could see it was a larger jet, but
none of us recalled ever seeing them fly so low over New York City. It was hard for our minds to fathom the
unfathomable. Until 9:03. We all watched as a second plane hit
the other Tower. At first, you
thought you were just watching earlier footage…because that is what your mind
wants you to think. But with both
Towers now ablaze, your mind was opened to your worst fears. We were under attack. One of the things that will stick in my
mind was what the TV announcer said at this moment. “This is obviously a major malfunction of the Air Traffic
Control System.” Apparently her
mind had not yet allowed her to believe what she was seeing. At this point everyone realized we were
no longer watching an isolated incident.
Tears formed, people ran towards phones. We hoped for the best, we feared the worse.
At the height of sensitivity, one of our secretaries came
into the conference room. “Mike,
you have a phone call.” She must
have seen me turn pale. She
apologized and said it was my boss, she was looking for me and I was not in my
office. The secretary told me my
boss wanted me to give her a call.
I thought maybe she was going to inform me to tell my staff and I that
we could go home to deal with what we needed to. This would not be the case. I gave her a call from the conference room as my eyes were
still glued to the TV. It seemed
she was having computer issues and needed my assistance immediately. Nothing we did at work was earth
shattering or needed immediate assistance that day. Also, we were getting quicker updates from the TV than
anything on the computer. I asked
her if she was aware what was happening.
She responded, “Yes…are you coming over to help me?” The room was shocked when I told them the reason I had to
leave. I headed over to the other
building. I passed their
conference room, and much like ours, it had the huddle masses of hysteria. Everyone was in there…except for my
boss. Her computer was on but she
said it was acting weird. She said
she had to run to her car and when she got back she needed to do work. Have it fixed by then. I ran some diagnostics to fix a few
things with her operating system.
It was then I heard the screams.
As one of TV watchers rushed back to their desks, they popped their head
into my boss’s office. “One of the
Towers just collapsed.” I was
stunned. What did they mean? Did the top floors come down? I had finished running the computer
tests as my boss returned, as she requested. I told her she just needed to restart her computer, I was
heading back to my building. I was
not sure if she knew about the Tower collapsing. Even if I told her I doubt her cold expression would have
changed.
I arrived back at my building and headed into the conference
room. I would learn the entire
Tower collapsed. It was the second
Tower hit. It was discussed that
since it was hit lower and on the corner, the Tower must have been more damaged
than the first. This must have
caused the structure to collapse.
As we were talking about our theories, the unthinkable happened. The first Tower hit collapsed. How could that have occurred? The damage from the plane had been up
high. We all sat in stunned
silence. The phone outside the conference
room rang. It was my boss and she
was looking for me again. I told
the secretary to tell her she could not find me. I returned to my office not knowing what else to do. Shortly I received a call from our Personal Director. She asked if I had helped my boss with
her computer. I said yes, but
don’t people have something a little more to worry about today than that. The Director agreed whole-heartedly,
but went on to say that we both know what my boss is like. I said I fixed the problem right away,
what was her issue. “Well, she had
a removable zip drive disk in her computer and now it is gone. It has all her work on it, her entire
life. She is saying you took
it.” What? Yes, I didn’t care for her. And, given the opportunity…I would love
to screw her over. But today? THIS day? How could I even think of that? How could SHE even think of that? I obviously told the Director I did not have it. She told me that my boss had gone home
because maybe she was mistaken and left it there. She also said to stay away from her office so she cannot
accuse me of anything else.
Slowly word got out about this. The grapevine at work was very active. People could not believe my boss’s focus
on this day. Maybe if she took
time to be human, she would never have lost the disk to begin with. Knowing that I was already guilty until
proven innocent in her eyes, I had to figure out what happened. My boss had computer illiteracy denial. One time she put a CD into a drive and she couldn’t get it
out. I was summoned to help and
was able to remove it. It was
upside down. She informed me she
did not put it in that way, it must have flipped over inside. I wanted to say the computer is not a jukebox
and it is not trying to play the B-side.
I thought better of it.
This time I was told she claimed she had put the disk into the drive. Then it hit me. I had told her to restart the computer,
I bet she never did. The disk was probably
in the drive and would appear when the computer was rebooted. I called back the Personnel Director to
tell her what the issue might be.
She told me she would go to my boss’s office and restart the computer. Otherwise my boss would claim I just
stuck it back in there since I was caught. About 15 minutes later the Director called me from my boss's
office. It was in the drive all
along.
I look back at that day. I think maybe it was better my mind was preoccupied
with the mundane, instead of the insanity that unfolded before us all. What I was to learn months later was
the Personal Director had already had it with my boss at this point. Her actions on this day were the final
straw. My boss would be terminated
before the end of the year.
The only acceptable loss from that day.
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