Driving into work this morning, I’m feeling a little sorry
for myself. Work hasn’t been awesome
lately. I opened my paystub last night
to see I’d been hit with almost 2 days of personal time off. I immediately sent an email to the HR
manager, asking her to clarify what they were for; even though I’m pretty sure
I know the answer. I opted to work from
home two days as I was rather sick, and I was nailed with personal time. Its okay, I’ve got the time to use, but what
annoys me is that I asked if it was okay that I work from home and my boss said
yes, then turned around and sent a note to HR telling her to use my sick
time. It’s very reminiscent of my rant
from a cube experience. There’s also been a ton of tension in our department
due to miscommunication between my coworkers (and some bitching) and while I’ve
asked my boss to address it, he hasn’t.
Woe is me …
Then I get to work, sit down and begin my morning
routine. I turn my radio on and they have
a 5 minute spot on the tragedy that occurred exactly 14 years ago. When the world I knew lost its innocence; when
thousands of people died in the worst terror attack on North America. While there were tons of stories of heroism
and humanitarianism, there were mothers and fathers, sons and daughters,
brother and sister that would never come home.
One of my friends posted how the story personally affected her … this part
from her story brought me to tears …
My sister's boyfriend at the time was also a
suburb firefighter and he lost his cousin. He was down at ground zero a lot.
The whole family came up to Boston at the end of September for my sister's bday
and Eric washed his truck. There was a patina of baby powder fine grey dust all
over it, and I remember, it was a sunny as 9/11 and I watched what was left of
the Towers get washed down my driveway.
I wasn’t there, I didn’t lose anyone in the tragedy, but I
could imagine standing there, on her driveway watching that myself. I’d just returned from a trip to Florida 2
days earlier and my family was frantic making sure I was home and safe, I travelled
a lot then. On the 1st anniversary
of 9/11 I flew from California to Toronto.
I remember the pilot telling us how brave we all were standing in the
face of terrorism and not backing down.
I didn’t feel brave, I felt scared, and sad, but mostly scared.
It’s one of those big moments in life. My mother always said she’d never forget
where she was when she found out President Kennedy was shot. I always found that odd, we’re Canadian, not
Americans, why would an American leader being shot mean so much to her. Now I get it.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard about 9/11. I was at home working and I had the TV on in
the bedroom to keep me company (even though I was across the hall in the
office). I was wondering why Oprah wasn’t
on and why this action movie was … then it was on every channel … then I
watched the second plane it the second tower, and I was getting nothing else
done that day. I spent the day locating colleagues,
friends, customers, family, counting my blessings that everyone I knew was
safe.
Now, 14 years later, I will focus on counting my
blessings. Work is that, I can leave it
behind when I go home and focus on how happy I am, how lucky I am, how blessed
I am.
