I brought donuts into the office on September 11, 2001. I brought them in, but no one ate them. I eventually tossed them in the garbage. There are many stories from that fateful day. My story isn’t particularly unusual, but it’s mine, and I remember it well.

19 year ago

Back then, I was a young professional, less than three years into my career. I got married the year before and we had just purchased our first house a few months prior. The most exciting thing in my career by that point, was crossing the Y2K threshold from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000. I wrote about that experience in this article. We were a solid 20 months into the new millennium, and things were going fairly well.

The story starts on September 10, 2001. I spent all day taking a monstrous certification exam. It was a big test that upgraded my NT 4.0 Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) to Windows 2000. I passed the test.

This was a big deal for me. So, I wanted to celebrate my achievement with my coworkers the next day. I picked up donuts on the way into the office. The day started off pretty normal. My job role was a desktop support analyst for our company’s remote offices. I fired up our ticketing system and started working on the day’s tickets.

The scarcity of information

As I sat in my cubicle, I remember hearing concerned chatter nearby about something happening in New York. I started up Internet Explorer 5 on my Windows 2000 computer and attempted to browse to internet news sites to get a sense of what was going on.

This is the moment that panic hit me. Every news site I could think of typing into my address bar was unresponsive. The spinning hourglass gave me no information, other than a sinking feeling that something major was going down.

I quickly resorted to my favorite source of tech news, Slashdot.org. They were up and running and that’s where I learned the news that the World Trade Center had been hit. Here’s an example of their coverage that day. Who told me about the 9/11 first? Well, I have to say it was CmdrTaco. Thank you for keeping your web servers humming that morning.

After that moment, I called my wife and spoke with coworkers. I desperately wanted more information. A few of us in the IT department noted that the company’s trading floor had several large TVs mounted high with cable TV feeds. We headed over. When we arrived it seemed like the whole company was already there, standing and watching in silence.

I missed the south tower collapse, but I witnessed the north tower collapse, right on live television, alongside my coworkers.

The blur

After the actual events, I don’t remember exactly what happened. I remember a lot of conjecture and concern about the office towers downtown Minneapolis and the Mall of America being the next targets.

I remember that many workers were evacuated, but my company and building never were. We didn’t get much work done, but also didn’t need to leave in a panic.

My wife, Wendy, and I both got home from work early evening. We watched the news and talked to family, with shock and wonder. I remember heading out to gas-up the cars before the price went up.

September 12, 2001

I drove to work the following morning and listened to the news station instead of music. I remember thinking that things would never be the same. I was 22 years old. My career, my marriage, and my whole adult life was all ahead of me, just getting started.

What was the world going to be like now? I really had no idea. I wasn’t afraid, but for the only time in my life, I had no clue on what to expect next.

19 years later

Without a doubt, 2020 has been a hard year. Like most of you, I don’t get to work in an office building with my coworkers, but am sitting in my house, typing on a laptop. 2020 has been full of unprecedented events, but at least for me, the year has unfolded a little at a time. September 11^th came all at once. It’s my generation’s Pearl Harbor. Even 2020, as crazy as it has been, doesn’t rival the impact of September 11, 2001.

Frankly, I’ll make an argument that 2001 made 2020 a little easier, at least for those of us in IT. In the aftermath of 2001, we all got really serious about disaster recovery and business continuity. For the first time at scale, we engineered remote work solutions, so at least a contingent of the workforce could be productive outside of the primary work location. Of course, we were all thinking about the next terrorist attack, not the next global pandemic, but the tech worked the same.

The first few generations of these technologies were a bit clunky, but after 19 years of practice, we’ve gotten pretty good at it.

How about you?

My story of September 11, 2001 isn’t very dramatic. I didn’t lose any loved ones. I wasn’t stranded at an airport. I just brought in donuts for my coworkers at my office job in a Minneapolis suburb. Many of you have your own stories. I’d love to hear a few in the comments below.

Regardless of our personal stories, we all shared in a national experience. September 11, 2001 was a day of terror, loss, and heroism unparalleled in our generation. We will never forget.

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