What I remember about September 11th...

I have vivid memories of September11th. I think we always have that stamped in our memories when we experience a national disaster. I remember that when the space shuttle blew up for the first time, I was in my eighth-grade photography class. Our teacher was especially shaken up because he had applied to be the teacher that was picked to go up with the other astronauts.

When the Oklahoma City bombing occurred, I had just started student teaching in Grand Island, my home town. I remember watching CNN a lot to get whatever new information I could. It seemed to annoy my partner teacher, who for some reason quickly lost interest. Maybe she was just jaded from the draining school year.

When the attack on September 11th occurred, I was at home because I was unemployed. The Internet start-up company that I worked for laid me off about three weeks prior to that, which was two weeks after my daughter, Julia, was born, which was three months after I had bought my first home.

All in all, it was already a stressful situation. So there I was sitting at home waiting for job offers and taking care of my daughter with my wife, who was on her maternity leave.

We turned on the TV that morning and were struck by the image of one of the towers burning in New York City. Shortly after that, the other tower was in flames when the second plane hit it. One of the Good Morning America news anchors asked befuddled, "What is going on?"

We watched with stunned faces at the happenings in New York City. After a while, we had to stop watching and we started getting going with our day. We had to eat. We fed our daughter. We started some laundry.

At some point, we started talking about the job situation. A couple weeks prior, I had applied at a place I'll call The Company. I got an interview with The Company a week prior. I interviewed with no problem. It was a standard first interview, well... standard if you can picture a whole interview in which the interviewer is almost trying to talk you out of working at the company...

It was a suit and tie company. He laid that out clearly. Then he started going over the rules. Much like the ten commandments, these were a set of rules that shouldn't be broken. He said that at The Company, they don't allow you to have a lot of pictures and such on your desk. You desk should remain clean. For that matter, you can't drink or eat at your desk. Food was definitely not allowed at your desk. No liquids of any kind were allowed on your desk since they could spill and ruin your equipment. You were expected to be at your desk and ready to work at 8 am and could leave no earlier than 5 pm. You must never lean against the walls or on a desk (there was a reason the buildings still looked new he told me). You weren't allowed to read a newspaper or do anything non-company at your desk. You had to wear a suit and tie to work, but you could hang the coat up when you came in. You also weren't allowed to walk on the grass (this I had accidentally done... oops)

I was in dire straits for a job, so I told him that I'd have no problem with those rules, so he said that they would consider me for a second interview after he decided where I best fit.

My wife asked the prior morning on Sept 10th, if I thought I might get a call from The Company. I thought that I might.

The next morning, she asked, "You don't think they're going to call today do you? Probably not, right?"

I thought of the chaos on the TV and couldn't imagine that they'd call me for an interview that day. After all, they had completely shut down air travel and I came to find out later that a lot of businesses sent their employee's home for the day. One exception was The Company.

The phone rang at about 10:30, literally minutes after the second tower fell to the ground. My wife answered. She called for me with a confused look on her face. I walked over and she mouthed that she thought it was the company.

It was indeed someone from The Company. Amidst all that chaos, they had still came through on their plans to call me for an interview. I remember trying to concentrate on what the person was telling me because I kept thinking, "This is weird. Don't they know what's going on today?"

I came to find out later that the employees there were all expected to go back to work. Only one computer on the QA floor had internet access and it was used to feed curious and fearful employees information on what was going on that day.

I know it's not wrong to make your employees work. After all, the second tower workers were told to go back to work with the first tower in flames, but it was just kind of weird that they would call on that day. Not that I'm complaining since it did lead to a job for me, but it was still a little weird and very surreal. Plus, it was a sign of things to come at that job, but that's another story.