Running to a Crisis

Third night after the horrific events of the world trade center, I sit in the waiting room of the hospital’s Women Center, my eyes glued to the TV-Screens. The screens alternate the images of President Bush addressing the fire fighters at ground zero, recaps of the twin towers falling and the menacing of tropical storm Gabrielle around the Tampa Bay. The howling winds of the storm outside the waiting room rock the building, bringing the chilling closeness to those scenes of the events what has rocked the entire world.

Yet in the middle of that tragedy – I have a glimmer of hope, of arrival of the first child of my friend who is in labor room with his wife in that Women’s center. 

A loud ring of the phone diverts my attention from those screens.

On the other side of that phone is a V-Teamer, who is helping restore the critical communications infrastructure of Lower Manhattan.

‘I am calling from Verizon emergency response team, circuits coming into the 11 Wall street building, the New York stock exchange, have had a collateral damage. Your team’s help is required for restoral of these circuits. Can we speak to Ravi from your team? We have attempted multiple calls but there is no response.’

‘Yes, Ravi is in the labor room with his wife – waiting for the arrival of their first child, any time now.’

We gather the team over a conference call, right in that waiting room of that Women’s hospital, we all get on the system and parse thru the circuit records, node by node, fiber by fiber, to isolate those circuits that ran the New York Stock exchange just until that September 11.

That system was the long-distance circuit management platform my team had built. The project had been a major failure by all measures imagined. It missed deadlines multiple times, we had grossly underestimated the complexity and blown our budget several folds over.

We had worked for over a year to build the new platform, I had struggled to get the system rolling in time, not knowing the complexity of what we had undertaken. What could go wrong with a project had gone wrong – I had questioned the efforts and futility of the project – up until that night in September.

Up until that night in the Women’s center at the university community hospital- when my team helped restoral of those circuits, using the very same system which I had assumed was a major failure. In a very small way, we helped the V – team who helped restore the New York Stock Exchange within the week of that tragedy.

In Verizon we have this line in our Credo, ‘We run to a crisis, not away’. In the middle of that tragedy, the V- team rallied, proving as it had always had, that we run to the crisis and not away.  

There are few defining moments in one’s life and career – this was certainly one of them. I saw the success of the project which I had deemed a failure, I saw the pride in my teams eyes for being associated with the larger V-Team, who ran to the crisis, every time they were called upon. 

And on a personal front, baby Rajeev, was born on September 14th and I became Uncle Ashok to a child who would be among the first generation of Americans who would be becoming adults post 9/11 – this week. This is the generation for whom the September 11 is a historical event – unlike the generation who experienced that tragedy in present and live the world as a present-day post nine eleven world. 

We as a country, those fire fighters and every organization in their own way ran to the crisis during that tragedy – that united the country and teams in a humbling way. I often wonder, the years that followed, the world that shaped, the post 9/11 world that this new generation of adults enter today, when they face a crisis personal or larger – will they run to a crisis or away?