story3558.xml

story3558.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

As for many people, September 11 started out as a day like any other. I was in my office working on a project, when a co-worker came in and said a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. I really didn't think much about it, assuming as most people did that it was an accident. I had no radio or TV, so kept on working as usual. After the second plane hit, my mom called me and we conferenced my aunt and my sister, who worked in the building next door. As my mom watched the TV, she filled us in on what was happening. I could not believe my ears.

I started to feel a panic come over me and all sorts of wild thoughts were flying through my head. Is this the end? I pictured every city in the country being attacked. It's hard to describe what many of us were feeling that day--it seemed absolutely nothing was safe and we didn't know what would hit next. Even though we were in Ohio, we felt just as vulnerable as everyone else--especially when there were reports that a hijaaked plane was flying over Cleveland. I had visions of my daughter's school being attacked, the building I was in being attacked, and everything in between.
My mother then informed us that flight 93 went down in Pennsylvania. I knew instantly what had happened--that the Americans on that plane had found out about the WTC and brought it down, not letting it anywhere near its target. God bless those people! How courageous! NEVER AGAIN! If we're going to die, we're going to die, but we can stop you from killing more, they seemed to be saying. Then followed erroneous reports that car bombs were going off in front of the White House, and more. Armageddon it seemed to me--this may be the end.

Now here's where my story turns cold. After talking with my family members on the phone for some time, I walked to another office where some of my co-workers were to discuss the events. Unfortunately, and much to my amazement, it was still "business as usual". Everyone was working on this stupid project and saying "we have to get this done". Now I ask, a year to the day later, was that project important? Did it really matter in the great scheme of things? I can't even remember what the project was. Upper management had the same reaction. Basically, the message was, get back to work. I couldn't believe it. How could I concentrate? I went back to my office, sat down, and cried. Somehow, I made it through the day (refusing to do any real work--they could make me be there, but they couldn't make me concentrate), and was finally able to go home, 8 hours later, to finally see the events on TV. It was worse than I had imagined.

Adding insult to injury, the company acted even worse the following day. Why didn't I call in sick? The company was a consulting firm, and several of our associates worked in downtown Columbus for city government and had been evacuated the day before. The vice-president of the company sent out an e-mail to everyone saying that since they were evacuated, they lost billable hours and were expected to make them up! If that doesn't take the cake. I could not believe the crass inhumanity of those people, and I started looking for work elsewhere shortly thereafter.

I am happy to say that I am out of that inhuman place, where people were treated solely as commodities. A year later, do those billable hours really matter? Does the project that was so important really matter? No, it does not. What matters is that thousands lost their wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, and friends that day--and the rest of the country will remember THAT forever.