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Thank You For Reading.Sep 11 '07 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line No final word
Before you read this, please read dianapinions 911 piece. I’d consider it a favor. She posted first and did a wonderful job. I have no urge to steal her thunder. She brought back a lot of memories for me, put a lump in my throat and motivated me to put down my thoughts. Thank you Di. …and so… Six years ago, at this very moment, I was sitting in our boardroom in stunned disbelief, having an epiphany for a new division for my company. It sounds cold, but I hope you don’t judge me by it. It was a gut reaction and I have very little control over such things. Also, in defense, this new division helped my company ride the rough waves of the next year and gave us the ability to transition to our current strength, when many like us folded their doors. I am a recruiter for the U.S. Software Industry. I specialize in Sales. The company is unimportant; we’re smaller than Heidrick and Struggles or Corn Ferry, but larger than most Mom and Pop shops that folks run out of their basement. We rarely get to meet the people that we place but we still get pretty close to them. We talk on the phone constantly, swap e-mails and funny stories, get to know their likes and dislikes, private lives… etc etc. I like to think we’re good people and a good company, a throw back to the old days when you and your bosses knew each other and the families. When they came to your Wedding and knew your kid's first names because they had met them. When you cared and it wasn’t just a job. When people had some loyalty. I like to think we’re decent, despite first re-actions. 6 years ago, while I'm writing this, many of us had just arrived to the office. “Hey… A Plane just flew in to the World Trade Center.” My friend and co-worker Josh had a news stream ticking across the bottom of his monitor. Several “What’s?” cropped up in the bull-pen. We have no cubicles here, just a bull pen. “Josh, I don’t know what you’re reading but that happened years ago.” I answered. “They said it just happened! A 767 just flew in to it” “No man… don’t you remember? It must be some sort of retrospective… and I thought it was a Cessna or something.” Silence in the office as Josh doubted what he was seeing. Then: “Holy F*ck… a second plane just hit.” “What?!?” This time it was I who doubted myself My CEO ran into the Bullpen. “Josh, are you catching this?” “Yup.” “BOARDROOM!!!” We have a substantial TV in the boardroom and so we watched events unfold just after the 2nd plane hit. Our mouths open and silent. Then a plane went in the Pentagon, then one went down in Pennsylvania. "What are we seeing?" “Jesus...This is war… Someone has just declared war and this is the beginning right here…” We watched as the Towers came down saying little. Then I piped up with my first re-action, based upon self-preservation and our reliance of a strong U.S. “Guys...We’re f*cked… and we know nothing about security software.” My CEO surprised me and his first reaction still adds to my shame. Here’s a guy who is an intellectual cross between Einstein and some weird absent-minded professor. He comes out with almost insulting comments at times because he rarely has time to do the “save your feelings” dance. He’s honest to the point of brusque and if you approach him with an emotion based argument (instead of a fact based one) he will cut you off at the knees. And his first words were: “Who do we have in the air today?” All the associates racked their brains to think if there were any in-person interviews that had required flight either yesterday, today or the next day. Luckily there were none. We did, as it turned out, have a few folks in the building for meetings with financial clients, but we didn’t know this until later. The someone looked out the window (I don’t remember who) and said “Umm guys… we should go home...” He must have encountered a few blank faces because he continued, “If someone has just gone to war with the U.S. we are in a really bad target area.” Out the window was the C.N. Tower. Across the street, in the heart of the Financial District, was the U.S. Embassy. Almost as if by telepathy, phones in the bull pen started ringing. One was the woman who was soon to become my wife asking if I could please get the hell out of Toronto and come home. I could… and did. All of us did, we ran and watched the worst event in our history unfold in the sanctity of or own homes. When it became apparent that the four planes were the full force of the weapon load we went back to the office. None of us picked up the phone. I personally spent my days sending e-mails to each and every person I knew on the eastern seaboard, asking if they were OK… if their loved ones and friends were OK… if they were holding up. I did this for 10 hours straight, every day for 2 weeks, waiting to see if I’d get responses and dreading opening them when they did come. …and feeling shame. Everyday I walked past the U.S Embassy and watched as the barricades went up around the ever-increasing pile of flowers and cards. Every day I tapped out more 2 finger messages to people I had never met, hoping that I would hear good news. Every day I looked at my phone like it was a cobra… something that would seriously hurt me if I touched it. I like to draw, (well… cartoon really) so I did a cartoon of a Beaver in a Canadian Hockey Jersey with his arm around an Eagle, propping him up. The Eagle suffered three distinct wounds: a black eye, a gash on his head, and a broken wing. I placed it with the overwhelming pile of love that flooded the front of the Embassy. I hope someone has it… I hope someone got to keep it. I went to a Moment Of Silence outside the embassy that lasted over half an hour. One of thousands of people who just stood and stared quietly. It would have lasted much longer had someone not broken in to a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. I did all this, knowing that my first thoughts were not of the people who were hurt or killed but of myself. … and for this I’m so very sorry. Each e-mail that I received for the months after affected me deeply. Some were cheery and thankful. Some were not. Every day when I thought it had to be over, a new message came in and hit me in the face like a cold wall of water. The Security Division that I eventually did start morphed in to something much larger and my boss congratulated me on my drive, gave me an "atta-boy" award and put me in charge of it a year later. The people I deal with, who sell every form of security software to every conceivable client from Finance to Government are some of the best individuals I’ve encountered and I have noticed that there is much more good than bad with this pack… …but each year, on this day, something comes to remind me of the magnitude of that day, and the emotion is crippling. Work stops, the phone should it ring, goes unanswered and each year I try to spend some time rectifying a moment of weakness where I cared more for myself that for my fellow man. A moment for which I will never be proud. …and each year I will continue to do so.  |
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