Monday - 9-11-01

So many have written so much about what happened on September 11, 2001. Part of me wants to write a tribute too; and part of me knows better than to try.

There wasn't much hullabaloo about the first plane's impact on the radio station I was listening to when I heard about it. In fact, there was a brief note about a plane hitting the World Trade Center by the announcer between songs. For whatever reason, the image in my mind was a single-engine plane, like a private plane, that had clipped the building on it's way to Martha's Vineyard or something. I reached my place of work with no more information than the idea that someone had hit the WTC with their plane.

When I got to my desk, people were streaming by in a fairly steady queue, going toward the cafeteria. Working for Sony Electronics, there weren't many rooms in the building that didn't have at least one television. Someone came to me and said, "Did you hear about the plane that hit the Twin Towers?" I nodded. "Some idiot have a heart attack or something?" I asked; he shook his head. "No, they're not sure what's going on." I was piqued, and noticed more people rushing -- rushing? I thought, what's the rush about? -- to the television.

When I got there the room was crowded with employees, all watching with wide eyes and gaping jaws.

I turned my head, and what I saw sent my heart into my throat.

The pillar of smoke rising out of the gleaming Tower's top was drifting across lower Manhattan on the gentle breeze, billowing furiously out of the shattered windows, being driven by the madly licking tongues of fire leaping inside. The helicopter from which the view was provided gave us an eye-level view of the black serpent that stretched out over the crisp, crystalline autumn morning. I watched in wonder as the second plane came zooming into view, drifted behind the second building, and out of view. The cataclysmic explosion that followed an instant later made me physically jump in my seat, and drew an audible gasp from all of us in the room.

I remember staring numbly for a moment. I somehow was at my desk, calling my wife. I heard her groggy, hoarse voice, heavy with sleep, answer the phone.

"Turn on the TV," I told her, "and behold Biblical prophesy unfolding before our eyes."

All I could think of was Revelation 18:8-10:

8"For this reason ^(A)in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be ^(B)burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her ^(C)is strong. 9"And ^(D)the kings of the earth, who committed acts of immorality and ^(E)lived sensuously with her, will ^(F)weep and lament over her when they ^(G)see the smoke of her burning, 10^(H)standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, '^(I)Woe, woe, ^(J)the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in ^(K)one hour your judgment has come.' (Rev. 18:8-10, NASB).

I couldn't say anything more. "What?" she said, still trying to focus on my words.

"Just turn on the TV," I repeated.

I heard her walk across our creaky hardwood floor and into the den, where she turned on the television. I heard the sound of the news coming through the handset. Then I heard her cry out "Oh my God ... Oh my God ... I -- I can't talk -- I have to go ... I have to go ..." She hung up on me then before I could say anything.

Our business never stopped functioning that day, but every smoke break reminded me that the world was never going to be the same again. Outside, just a few miles from O'Hare International Airport, the sound of the roaring jets going overhead, whisking people off to wherever they go, for whatever reasons, was a regular part of life. You actually get used to halting your conversations long enough for the screaming planes to pass over you until it was quiet enough to speak again.

I lit my cigarette that day, and I heard the sound of the flint wheel on the tiny stone. I heard the hiss of the gas stream escaping. I heard the birds in the trees around the facility. I heard the fountain in the tiny retention pond splashing away happily, and the quacking of the ducks in it. I heard the swans beating their wings. I heard things.

But I didn't hear any planes. The sky was silent.

After a time, a plane approached from the west. I watched it as it slowly roared and shrieked away over our building, bound for O'Hare, and I knew it was being carefully watched. When it passed over, the silence slid in around it again like water as it glides back from a boat wake. It washed over the whole world, and there was nothing but the thunderous quiet.

My son's life wasn't going to be like mine, I knew. And I knew that, from that day forward, nothing would ever be the same in my life again. I wondered that day if my wife and I had made a mistake in deciding to have a child. We both knew the world would never become a better place, but we thought ... I guess we thought the changes would be more subtle, more insidious, less noticeable, and more gradual. I don't think we ever expected the world's changes to seize us by the lapels and slap us across the mouth, then slam us to the ground and spit on us.

My wife wondered who hated us -- the United States, the land of freedom, the land of generosity, that had given so much to so many throughout her life; the country of heroism and decency; the nation that rescued nations in time of need -- who would hate us so much to perpetrate such a horrific, heinous, incomprehensibly evil act? She couldn't understand. She couldn't see how we could do so much for so many and be so reviled. Who?

It was rhetorical, of course; she's no fool. I think she knew the answer, she just couldn't wrap her mental arms around it.

I couldn't answer her specifically, but I did tell her that the world at large does not think well of our country. They hate us for any number of reasons, but the primary one is that they envy our wealth, our freedoms, our power and our position. I told her that, among the western nations, we are considered a "bully" that is too strong for its own good and one that needs to be stripped of some of its might. I told her that among the eastern nations, we are not well-thought of either; but the middle eastern nations are where the real hatred resides. The photos of the celebrations in those countries as our civilians died and our monuments collapsed into dust and rubble brought it home -- for both of us.

Naturally, I didn't tell her anything she didn't already know; my wife is much more aware of the world's goings-on than I am. But she, in her shock, just couldn't find the handle on those things.

For the next few days, our eyes were fixed on the television. We watched and we hoped; hoped for word of survivors, for word of the capture of the villains that perpetrated the horror, for an end to the fear and the anger. We hoped, of course, in vain.

Nothing will ever be the same again after September 11, 2001. If there is, however, any small grain of benefit from the monstrous deed, it is that we still remember.

I just wonder for how long. People were complaining about the increased security just DAYS after the event; they complained about not being able to fly immediately. Business whined that they needed the air travel to conduct their business. Passengers complained that their plans had been altered. The airlines complained that they'd lose billions -- yes, billions -- of dollars and have to file for government bankruptcy protection, oh, and by the way, we're going to need to be held in indemnity for all this, too; wouldn't want any angry family members suing us, would we now? All of this occurred on September 12, 2001. Yes, the very next day people were complaining. We, as a nation, still didn't even know what fate had befallen those that were trapped above the impact zones of the building, but it was not too soon to complain. They started, in short, to forget ... almost before it ever happened.

I know that many remember, but I think a lot of people have gotten distant from it, too. I think there's been enough time that people can cluck their tongues and shake their heads now, and say, "Wasn't that awful? That was just terrible. I remember how horrible it was that day."

But do they?

Lord, may I never forget. May I never forget the fear, never forget the pain, never forget the anguish ... and may I never forget the oppressive, blanketing, deafening silence.

Wednesday ... Heartache

Well, it's done.

As soon as I did it, I knew I was going to be sorry. I made the decision that, so much time had gone by, it didn't matter. A couple of more months wasn't going to make any difference.

But it stings; oh man, does it ever.

Tonight, I packed the last of my art supplies.

All my pencils, pens, erasers, sharpeners, leads, holders, curves ... all boxed and wrapped and ready to go for the end of the month.

I've packed my papers and pads already; these were the last things left out. I think, somewhere in the back of my head, I thought that at least I could draw on any paper if the inclination so struck me. I could scribble on index cards, printer paper, envelopes ... anything at all. As long as I had my pencils and pens out, I could reach them, touch them, hold them -- and use them.

Now, however, they're sealed beneath cardboard, flotsum and jetsum, plastic bags and padding from my daughter's burp-rags. They're locked away, safe for the move, where I won't be able to even see them again until after the move.

In truth, I know that so much time has gone by I couldn't draw anything. Much rust must be scraped for me to even get back to the low-level where I was before. I haven't practiced, I haven't set aside the time I need to do it. I've been busy with work, family, friends occasionally, and when I wasn't busy with all that, there was football to watch, blogs to update, cigarettes to smoke, groceries to buy, and a million other things that needed doing. My artwork was again set aside, just as it has been so many times in the past, to collect dust in the corner, patiently waiting for me to come back and pick it up again.

One day soon, I won't be able to anymore. My hands will be unsteady, my eyesight too poor, my joints too achy and stiff to wield the pencil anymore. One day, my world will be dark and my heart unable to stretch itself onto the smooth blank surface of the paper. One day, the graphite won't obey my commands anymore, and on that day I will weep bitterly, longing for the lost years when I let my talent be buried and forgotten, wasted amid the ruin that once my life was. I'll wish for one more of those lazy afternoons I spent wiling in front of the television back, so that I can spend it sketching and being creative. I'll pray God for one more chance to exercise that ability that He so graciously bestowed upon me, despite knowing that I would waste it instead of cherishing it. The fat, wet tears that roll down weathered and wrinkled cheeks will be as fleeting as my youth was, and the ability to render what I see will be dimmed as my vision fades to foggy darkness, testaments to my folly and stupidity that has cost me so dearly ... more than once.

For now, I have taken one concession ... one tiny cheat that I took, probably subconsciously.

I left my Graphire hooked up to my computer. Photoshop is still installed on my computer.

Can ten minutes a night really hurt? Well ... maybe fifteen. :)

I don't want to spend the end of my life sorry for everything. There should be one thing that I can do and do well, even if it's not as well as others. It's something that I love to do; shouldn't I do it then?

JDT

Saturday ... Another Week Slips Past ...

Here it is, Saturday night, and now I'm facing September.

Most folks don't mark the passing of time the way that I do. It's kind of interesting to watch me get more and more anxious as the year rolls past; you'd think that I'd be used to it by now. After all, I've had four decades of instability and insecurity from which to draw experience. Yet I'm never the calm, collected, ready-to-face-another-year kind of person. I'm the jittery, skittering little squirrel, rushing about to collect and shutter away as many nuts as I can for the long, potentially unfruitful winter to come.

You see, I'm a contractor in the IT field, and that's as uncertain as a frozen pond in March. If, for some reason, that's not a functional analogy for you, then it's as uncertain as the most uncertain thing you can think of in your context. :)

What that translates to, for those of you in other industries, is that I don't know if I'll have a job beyond the end of this year. While there's no guarantee that I'll have a job AT the end of the year, it's even less certain that I'll have one beyond the end of the year. For me, the world lives in six-month blocks of time; that's how long a contract extension lasts. I was told earlier this year that I'd been extended to the end of the year, but that meant very little to me after I watched no few than two other contractors get "extended" to the end of the year only to be released shortly after said extension. One of them was released less than six weeks after being given a raise for merit.

The promises of corporations don't mean anything anymore. I was promised a career with the last company I was with, and I got laid off four years into it. Sure, there was the whole industry cave-in during 1999-2000, and there was 9/11 in 2001, but somehow the company fared through all that and caught us with our knickers about our ankles in 2002 when an "organizational decision" was made to eliminate the jobs of 24 individuals, among whom I was numbered. It went on in other areas before affecting me, but we were told that we were "safe". I have since learned that there is no such thing as "safe".

Since that time, I haven't had a full-time job. The only work I've had has been as a contractor, and a low-level contractor at that. I'm not one of those highly-paid, flashy "consultants" that come in and bill companies for criminal amounts of money, or even one of those project managers that rush around and go to all the meetings to pass on what they're doing and then delegate what they're assigned to someone else. Nope, I'm the bottom-feeder, and if this were a different sort of work, I'd be called a "temp" instead of a "contractor". Pick your own euphemism, it's the same thing. I'm a commodity, a tool that's used like a spare tire to keep things moving until someone more permanent can be put in place.

It's not very comforting for me to say that, and it's even less so to live it. IT used to be an industry that was worth working in, but it's done this to itself. Those who worked in IT before the industry was forced to change (and quickly) can recall the "glory days" of the late '90's, when we were recruited all over the country if not the world for big salaries and with unproven skill sets. We wrote our own tickets and priced ourselves into fossildom; the cost of running an IT department wasn't even a company consideration before, it was just something that had to be paid, period. Whatever the cost of running the IT department/division, the company either found a way to pay it or went out of business. The hope was that these expensive people would position the company for that boon in the enigmatic "e-commerce" and give them the competitive edge that would balance the king's ransom they paid out to get to that successful plateau.

Of course, IT is now considered expendible. In just those short six or seven years, companies have starting looking off-shore for lower costs in technology personnel. Some companies don't have an IT department at all anymore, and what is being used for their technical support is likely based somewhere in China or India. What jobs are available here now only pay a fraction of the amount they did before the "crash" and are temporary positions so that someone new can be brought in and the pay scale reset every couple of years -- or worse yet, a couple of times a year. The qualifications for those positions can't be what they were in the late '90's, either; I've seen ads requiring -- yes, requiring -- more training than I'd been able to afford or garner over the last decade, and that has to be coupled with practical, working experience to match or it's a no-go. I know it's enforced too, because I've been turned away from positions for which I know I was over-qualified because of either training requirements or experiential requirements.

So, I'm again faced with a dilemma; do I train for more work in this industry, and possibly face this whole six-month life-cycle again, or do I try to find another way to make a living and see if I can score the same (or better) salary that it's taken me a full 10 years to rise to in THIS industry?

The question is one that I'm going to have to face sooner rather than later, because the end of the year is coming. If I survive the next 90 days, that is. I go in every day to work and work as hard as I can to demonstrate that I'm worth hanging onto, and worth the money I'm costing, but that doesn't always work. In today's corporate IT setting, I find it succeeds less and less, because the driving force is the bottom line, not the ability to be positioned in technology for the ambiguous future. Companies waited patiently for the over-burdened cost of IT to right itself, and fate took that one better. The industry didn't right itself, it capsized itself. Now, "business" has the upper hand and seems to relish leveraging that against the IT world that took advantage when it had the chance.

The gravy train stopped long ago, and now I have to decide what I'm going to do with my life until someone comes along and reads my blog then blurts "My GOD! You're a BRILLIANT writer! How would you like to write a book for me? Here's a multi-million dollar advance on the first thing you grind out!"

My options, while not great, are as follows:

1. Continue down a path as a VB/VBA programmer, which will mean being a contractor forever probably, and is very risky. It's risky because I have no experience and will have to take whatever pay is offered and hope it's high enough to make ends meet.
2. Take a new path. One fork of that new path is SQL; I can probably learn to be a database administrator, and get certified by someone for it, which would help get my foot into doors that are currently closed. On the other hand, I again have no experience doing that, and that leads me back to not being able to control the pay scale very well.
3. The other fork in this new path leads me to SAP. Now, that's a whole other ball of wax, and isn't as easy -- or even as clearly defined -- as it sounds. There are a billion options for SAP, depending on what combination of things you want to do in that. In fact, SAP is almost an industry in an industry, and it's been kept a dark and mysterious vault of secrets for a long time. I have a penlight with which to navigate it. So, the first thing I have to do is find out what options are available to me in SAP, and then find out what training is required to pursue those options, and then find out what benefits that will provide me, and then commit to getting said training ... all before the end of the year.

So, based on all that, I'm looking for input anywhere I can get it. What, if anything, are the thoughts of those that happen across this blog? What, if any, suggestions can you offer me? What advice can you give? And if nothing else, where can I get a cup of coffee?

Stay tuned, faithful viewers ... the tension is rising.

JDT

Thursday - Ugh.

All right ... I've changed this stupid blog like five times tonight, and I'm sick of trying.

I wanted the black one; when I originally set the blog up, I didn't see it for some reason, or opted not to use it. I can't remember now. But then, I was going through Blogger's templates, and I found it, and really wanted to use it -- you know, the whole "Darcness" theme thing. My friend here is also using it though, and I didn't want to look like a butt-kisser trying to copy the cool kids; besides, my wife doesn't care for the white-on-black schema, and I couldn't find a font I liked, and I hated the editing ... meh. So I tried an all-gray one that looked okay, but didn't have a "Links" section, and I didn't want to figure out how to screw around with the sidebar that much, so screw it. Finally, I picked this one, but now it looks like a chick-blog. (JK ... it does strike me as feminine, though.)

Anyone have any thoughts? Anyone care? Anyone OUT THERE??

God bless,
JDT

Saturday - Lord, please make my words tender and sweet ...

After I finished posting my journal yesterday, my wife read over what I’d written and she brought something to my attention that I didn’t think about until she did.

When people lose their jobs, it’s not funny.

I didn’t mean to poke fun at the people around me that lost their jobs. Certainly, there was an attempt at mirth and lightheartedness in my posting, but I didn’t mean it from a malicious or gleeful view point. I was just trying to show how funny things have been over the several months at work. The sad part is, I didn’t take in consideration that I’ve prayed for the women that lost their jobs since their release. I’ve been there – I’ve been blind-sided by termination that I never saw coming. It happened to me when the economy in the US was at it worst, and the devastation that was brought to us is chronicled in my writings on this and other pages on the Internet. I didn’t take any joy in the firing of those individuals, even though they’d been sources of angst and ire for me more than once. The reason was easy to identify: it was because it hit me too close to home.

I was cut too close to the bone, particularly when the second individual was released earlier this week. This is a similar transpiring of events to the way that I was released from the last permanent position I had, back in 2002. It came from out of the blue, unexpected and without warning of any kind from any front. It’s a sucker-punch to the gut; it makes you want to vomit, cry and scream all at the same time, but you can’t do any of those things. Shock steals any sound before you make it.

The terror that came on the heels of that blow is worse by far, though, and lasts much longer. It’s always there, waiting in the wings, lurking in the shadows just beyond your conscious efforts to push it aside and look at “the bright side.” It’s waiting for you when you sleep, and comes in nightmares and cold sweats. It steals upon you in the broad of day with anxiety attacks and sudden surges of realization that you’re out of work, there is no income, you’re not going to be able to pay your bills, etc. It begins to strike when the phone rings, or when the mail arrives. It sets in when any glimmer of hope in the form of a job interview or even email of inquiry is never responded to or even acknowledged. It’s there, waiting for you when you least expect it, or even when you are expecting it.

A young man working as a desktop support tech (for those of you that don’t know, that’s the person that shows up to fix your computer after you’ve contacted the help(less) desk and gotten nowhere) at the company where I’m now contracting spoke to me several months ago regarding his contract ending. He told me that his two-year-maximum term of employment would be up in August; I asked if he’d started looking (this was in April or May, I think). He said no, and that he wasn’t worried about it, really. He felt that, if the company didn’t offer him a full-time job, he wouldn’t have any trouble getting another one somewhere. The parent company from which this one spun off two years ago would probably take him if nothing else. He was completely confident, and very relaxed.

I spoke to him again in June, and he told me that he’d been informed his last day with us would be on August 25, 2006. I asked again if he’d started looking, and he said he’d been checking websites like Monster or Yahoo!, but nothing serious. He (still) wasn’t worried about it, he reiterated. I shook my head and told him how I admired his confidence; after 10 years in his field, I wasn’t getting ANY offers that met my salary requirements in the last 18 months. It’s the reason I’d taken the job I have; I didn’t really have any other choice, and it at least was in the pay-range I needed.

On Thursday, August 24, 2006, I saw him again. I asked him how the job search was going. He shook his head and grimaced a bit. He’d not been offered anything over $9 an hour LESS than he was being paid at this company. Oh yes, there were offers, but nothing that was equal to what he was being paid. I asked him about the potential for going to the parent company. He glanced up at me briefly and said that they were “trying” to get him in there. He hadn’t heard any more than that. I wished him well, and sincerely meant it, and walked away wondering how I could have communicated to him that I told him so without saying “I told you so.” I decided not to bring it up at all. I just resolved to pray for him, because I’ve been where he is and it’s a tough, tough row to hoe.

There are people in this company all around me being dropped like so much garbage into a waste bin. It’s true, there are a lot of changes taking place, now that the company has completely severed itself from the parent organization. It’s also true that they’ve re-evaluated the cost of running their IT department, and have decided that they need to cut costs and bring that expenditure under control. Other companies operating at this size and doing similar things have costs that are anywhere from half to three-quarters what this company is spending, and that’s a deep concern to the C-level management and, I’m sure, the stockholders. So things have to be done; salary and benefits is a quick and easy way to reduce budget, and it’s usually the first thing cut to get costs down. And so it’s going that way here.

Nevertheless, the circumstances and the pressures of those things didn’t really impact the people that were let go from our group the last couple of weeks. In fact, one of the people terminated was facing the two-year limit anyway. But she expedited her termination by being a problem employee and proving herself undependable and inconsistent with quality. Her position was sacrificed earlier than planned to the great and angry god “Budget,” but the truth is, it was going to happen anyway. My sorrow and concern for her was that she’d been offered nothing higher than $3 an hour less than what she was making in her position with this company, and she’d been turned down for more than one of those. I feel for her. I can empathize, but do not sympathize, because she didn’t take any effort to be anything more than a temp. She was, therefore, treated like one.

As for the second person, her circumstances amuse me if not the outcome. She brought all the havoc that befell her onto herself. She might have gotten away with what she was doing (see yesterday’s entry for more information) had she just remained quiet in terms of her pay. She was a chronic griper and complained about anything and everything. Her complaints about her pay is what triggered the events that led to her termination. She may as well have held up a sign indicating what she was doing; it may never have been found without her help. She offered nothing in the way of an explanation when given the chance to do so, and has yet to blame herself for what happened. The last communication some of my teammates had with her on Friday reflected only ire toward the manager of the department and expressed feeling that he favored men over women. They feel this is the reason they were released.

That’s terribly sad to me.

So, if I sound calloused about what happened, forgive me. I don’t mean to; it’s just that, while it’s not funny that two people have lost their jobs in under two weeks, it’s something of a bemusement to me. Someone losing their job isn’t something to poke fun at; the circumstances for these particular firings are a bit comical, though, especially the second person.

It’s not funny, but it is ironic.

I’m still praying for them, by the way, and I will continue to do so. I hope that any of you reading this will continue to pray for us, because the end of the year is coming.

God bless you all.
JDT