BOX 2
HOW 9 / 11 ALTERED WHERE TO WORK
It was one of those bright September mornings with a premonition of fall in the air.
My wife and I were on the M6 bus from South Ferry that we had boarded from the Staten Island Ferry when our driver gaped through his left rear view mirror and screamed:“ The World Trade’ s on fire!!!”
I stepped off at 23rd Street and stared at the smoke billowing from the north tower. Not long afterwards I watched the plane hit the south tower in an orange and black fireball …
When I got into my office I called my wife, who worked at 34th Street, and said,“ We’ re getting out of here!” The Empire State Building and Madison Square Garden were nearby, and we feared that we could be next.
My wife was also on the phone with our son, a paramedic. He was being called in and would later be performing triage at what would forever be known as Ground Zero...
We decided to evacuate to New Jersey and began walking to the New York Waterway ferry terminal, joined by my sister-in-law. She had taken the 1 subway train and had heard a boom as it passed beneath the towers. But she fell ill, and when we docked was taken to a nearby hospital, accompanied by my wife.
I was hoping to cross back into Staten Island and get my car to pick up my wife and sister-in-law. But the authorities weren’ t letting people cross from New Jersey to New York, so I stayed at a friend’ s house. That evening I sent- and answered- all too many“ Are You OK?” emails …
Our family would be reunited a few days later, thanks to our son who could get through the security cordons. But I would only go back into the office once; I had carried out my company-issued laptop and connected it at home.
There would eventually be a return-to-office so-called“ normal.” But it wasn’ t the same. My wife endured far longer commutes where sometimes the other commuters would start crying.
The Remote Work Shift: and Risks After each disaster like the SARS outbreak, Hurricane / Superstorm Sandy, and particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic, more people worked remotely and wanted it to continue.
Each time the technologies improved, and more best practices were developed, which made remote work even more practical and attractive.
Remote work has also proven critical for call centers. Customers want to know what is going on, especially when events happen, so agents need to be in safe locations.
But workers were reminded that they too were vulnerable to disasters at home and must plan( and improvise) accordingly.
We were living on the Jersey Shore when Sandy hit and evacuated to my sister-in-law’ s apartment; again, I was carrying a laptop. When we returned, we found that our apartment was intact, had heat and hot water, but there was no power and little connectivity.
So, each day we drove to the nearest coffee shop that had both, joined by many others, and drove back in time to meet the National Guard-enforced curfew.
Even with the risks, one can’ t blame workers, like call center agents, for preferring to work remotely. It enables them to live where they want, free from expensive, time-draining, and dangerous commutes, and 10perhaps CONTACT most CENTER importantly PIPELINE, to be close to their loved ones.
--Brendan Read
FEATURE
" I ALSO REMEMBER THAT DATA CENTERS WERE GREATLY HARMED AS MOST OF THEIR NETWORKS WERE FED THROUGH THE WORLD TRADE CENTER... TODAY, MOST DATA CENTERS ARE IN DIFFERENT TIME ZONES."
-- LAURA SIKORSKI
Here are a few personal memories I would rather not have …
• My brother and his wife were in Las Vegas to adopt and bring home their baby daughter. Plane travel was pretty much nonexistent, but with the help of my sister-in-law, who worked for an airline, they were able to get back home by 9 / 16. Very stressful and sad for all of us.
• My other brother had just dropped our mom and her friend at LaGuardia Airport( LGA) to fly out for a speaking event in Washington D. C. about the Holocaust.
I called him several times on his cell to explain what was happening- calls were dropping- and stressing he had to get them home.
It was difficult for him to get back into the airport and park due to police redirecting traffic away from the airport. The traffic out of LGA was pretty much a parking lot and it took him hours to find them and get them home.
• Another moment that stands out for me was going to a wedding at a venue in Queens, New York City a few days after 9 / 11 and still seeing the smoke out the floor to ceiling windows.
Every time I see this couple I remember their wedding, why they chose not to cancel, and why my entire family went … we wanted to remember their wedding as the happiest day of their lives and how it brought joy to all who came.
The weirdest part? I live on Long Island about 50 miles from New York City and two miles from the Long Island Sound. For days we heard our military jet fighters that were protecting our airspace. We felt safe and were very proud.
Brendan Read is Editor of Contact Center Pipeline. He has been covering and working in customer service and sales and for contact center companies for most of his career. Brendan has edited and written for leading industry publications and has been an industry analyst. He also has authored and co-authored books on contact center design, customer support, and working from home. Brendan can be reached at brendan @ contactcenterpipeline. com.