I hate this time of year, and I have good reason. I start getting ready around now - I turn off the phone. I avoid the news. I take a long walk in the big blue and green room away from the computer, away from the flag-waving hype from loudmouthed Republican talking heads that makes me want to hurl my guts up for days because I know how shallow and temporary it is.
A week ago, it began - the anniversary diaries appeared. You know, the ones about August 6, 2001, the day that an intelligence threat analysis memo made it to Bush's desk which said "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US".
What makes me a little queasy is that August 13, 2001, is my own particular anniversary. Seven years ago today, blissfully unaware of whatever might have landed on Bush's desk, I suddenly decided that making backups of all my files to CD would be a Real Good Idea(tm). All my email, stuff I was working on, scripts and tools, etc. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. I burned 3 CDs worth of data and took them home.
These files are the only surviving infrastructure from the NYC office of Sun Microsystems, which was on the 25th and 26th floor of 2WTC. It seems that their sysadmins - a job I would dearly have loved to have myself as it would have kept my back injury at bay - got lazy about making sure their offsite backups actually got offsite. Sun's NYC office lost everything. EVERYTHING. All sales records. All contract information. All records of sales in progress. All local technical work.
The only thing that Sun did not lose was the content on the NYC SSE Intranet web page, which I was in charge of, because it was on my 3 CDs.
That web page, post 9/11, was re-established on a server in New Jersey by myself and a coworker, and quickly became the place NYC employees went to get critical updates from the company on counseling services, reimbursement for personal items, location of the new offices, new telephone numbers and other office-wide announcements.
Anyone who ever wants to accuse me of technical incompetence can kiss my sweet Brooklyn ass. What I did helped to carry that company through a time of utmost loss and horror, and just like the Y2K tools idea I received absolutely no thanks or credit for it from horrifically sexist management.
It wasn't even my job to back the files up - I just did it "because I thought it would be a good idea". When one little redhead with a flash of spooky foresight can do what a LOT of people who were probably getting paid a lot more could not, I don't think I need to worry about who the real incompetents are.
Today on my own personal anniversary I contemplate with a bit of wonder and fear the fact that I did get that strange, conveniently timed urge to do what backups I could; tempered with a certain amount of rage over the way I was treated for being the only person to have done so. After 1998 when the only good boss I ever had there was promoted, no good deed I did ever went unpunished at Sun Microsystems.
August 13th is a permanent reminder to me that I was working for a set of stone assholes so determined to drive me out of my career that they found themselves choking on any thanks when I saved what infrastructure I could; while lazy and incompetent "golden boys" were allowed to keep the jobs they didn't do right. Their reaction when it was discovered that I'd managed to at least save the web page was that of Cinderella's family when the glass slipper ended up fitting the wrong girl.
What I went through on September 11th itself is another story, but what I really find ironic is that even today it doesn't take much for many folks who get all teary-eyed and flag-wavy and "be nice to your fellow human beings" to turn right back into the sexist, racist, hateful, greed-obsessive assholes they really are on September 10th, September 12th, and every other day of the year; with the possible single exceptions of Christmas and Easter. The anniversary of my burning those three CDs bring out a great deal of cynicism in me today, because I remember how hard I worked and how many things I did right even if there was a "media blackout" on the subject at my job. And the horrific lessons of 9/11 taught those people - and so many others like them absolutely nothing.
There's a lot of really refreshingly nice, kind, and SMART people here at DailyKos. It restores my faith in humanity to rub digital elbows with some of you. It's a healing process, in a way, to be able to hang out here... but it wasn't always a bed of roses for me, and I dearly wish I'd have known where some of you were back in those dark days seven years ago.
Thanks for reading.