I was working in an IBM call center at the time, doing desktop, network, and operating system support. I heard a coworker of mine a row over say that a plane hit the world trade center. I wandered over, saw what had happened and went back to my desk and called my wife. We were on the phone together watching live as the second plane hit. It was surreal. I am a former firefighter/paramedic and the loss of the FDNY 343 that day still hits close to home. They sent us home from work early that day because they didn't know if more attacks were coming, plus, in light of what had just happened, suddenly no one cared about their computer problems that day. Calls into the call center dried up immediately.

The weird part is, I was the lead on the Morgan Stanley contract and their calls would come in electronically in a batch. We had a bunch come in that day for the WTC. I talked to a supervisor as to how to handle those. I ended up closing those tickets, just noting that those machines no longer exist. Really weird. I talked to a Morgan Stanley guy several weeks later who had been there that day. He was standing outside the building smoking a cigarette when the first plane hit. He said he just took off running. When he finally stopped, he had no idea where he was. Fight or flight kicked in and he chose option 2.