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September 14, 2001
A Workforce Still in Shock
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USA Today said workers all over the country - not just those in the New York and Washington areas - came to work highly distracted and worried.
"Today on my way into the office, I bought eight dozen bagels and cream cheese. It was all I could think of to do. I know people derive comfort from food and eating together," said Marc Morgenstern, managing partner at a Cleveland law firm where employees returned to work Wednesday after their tall building closed the day before. "I've probably cried 20 times today, and I'll probably cry 20 times more. Everybody's in pain."
Employees everywhere struggled to work despite a slowdown in business, interrupted meetings, and ongoing news updates.
"I'm sitting here in a high rise in downtown Portland," said Brian Clarke, corporate safety director at Hoffman Construction, a general contractor and construction management firm in Oregon. "There's a national fighter pilot circling outside. For us, that's a different sight."
Adding to the disruption were fears of more destruction. False bomb threats took on new credibility, sending people out of many buildings, including New York's Grand Central Station and even the U.S. Capitol. In affected areas, workers were told to be on high alert for suspicious activity; false reports of threats continued to trickle in, which experts say can keep workers in a heightened state of stress.
"For the next few days, what we'll really see is the shock. In an emergency situation, people go through the motions," says Joy Riley in Atlanta, a consultant at Watson Wyatt. "To get back to your routine is valuable."
Another good idea: helping victims of the terrorism. The National Association of Realtors on Wednesday established a housing relief fund to pay the mortgage and rental costs of families devastated by the terrorist attacks. Realtors nationwide were urged to contribute. The association will make an initial contribution of $1 million to open the fund. Those eligible for help will include emergency personnel, as well as employees and their families.
For others, help means donating space, clothes, a place to stay and encouraging employees to give blood. Employees at Bluefly.com, a New York-based firm that sells discounted clothes online, met Wednesday to discuss how to help. They agreed to donate blood, clothes and offer about 9,000 square feet of vacant space in their building to other firms who have been displaced. In just a few hours, they had dozens of contacts about the offer.
Returning to work voluntary
The Chicago Tribune reported that Quaker Oats Co. closed its headquarters along the Chicago River at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, sending 1,100 home. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, the state's largest health insurer, evacuated its 3,000 employees as a "precautionary measure" from the company's 30-story headquarters in Chicago.
Nor did business return to normal on Wednesday. Exelon Corp., parent of power company Commonwealth Edison, did not demand that people come to work. Gary Snodgrass, a senior vice president, said Tuesday: "We want them to make sure their personal situation is safe and secure."
Elsewhere, the Tribune reported, Coca-Cola Co. closed its world headquarters in Atlanta, fearing that the beverage giant's high global profile could make it a terrorist target. Ford Motor Co. and the U.S. arm of DaimlerChrysler AG said they had closed all of their U.S. manufacturing plants, while Home Depot Inc. shut 20 stores in New York and Washington.
Reviewing travel, data storage
Hartford, Conn.-based Loctite, a global manufacturer of adhesives and sealants, has urged its staff to use videoconferences instead of face-to-face visits, according to The Hartford Courant.
Meanwhile, across the Connecticut River in East Hartford, jet engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney closed some entrances to its plants and scrutinized visitor credentials more closely.
In the long run, according to analysts interviewed by the Courant, the attacks could lead to substantive changes in the way companies do business and where they locate key operations.
They'll take a fresh look at systems for backing up computer records, perhaps put more people in low-rise buildings away from high-profile places such as Wall Street, and update their e-mail systems because the Internet performed better than cellphones during Tuesday's attacks, the Courant reported.
"I think this is a lesson. I think this is a big lesson for us," consultant Bruce Vakiener said. "We are vulnerable. We have not taken this as seriously as perhaps we should have."
United Technologies Corp., Connecticut's largest private employer, said security at all of its state aerospace operations - Pratt, Sikorsky Aircraft, and Hamilton Sundstrand - had been tightened.
"We are being very, very careful about who is admitted into those companies," spokesman Paul Jackson said. "I think when the investigation [of Tuesday's attacks] is concluded and we know more about who did this and why, then we will be in a better position to know how long we have to be on guard."
'Accomplish more in one trip'
Already, some Massachusetts businesses have talked of permanently altering their travel policies by limiting choice of airlines or destinations, while others have said they would resume a full travel schedule when conditions permitted, the Boston Globe reported.
Company officials began reassessing their travel plans just hours after airports here and across the country shut down as the nation's leaders declared a state of emergency, the first since bombs destroyed Pearl Harbor 60 years ago.
"We had talked about air travel repeatedly over the past year,'' said Chuck Ellis, chief of technology at Gazelle Systems Inc. of Newton, who was stranded at LaGuardia Airport in New York on Tuesday and driven back to Boston. ''This episode has put it on the front burner. It will also put pressure on everyone here to be more efficient and to try to accomplish more in one trip."
The company, which sells new technology and services to restaurants, said it would encourage executives to pack more meetings into a single trip and, whenever possible, use new technologies such as video conferencing and teleconferencing.
"Flying is now so unpleasant and so expensive that people are unhappy with it, and the [attacks in New York] only reinforced this feeling," Ellis said.
For more, read articles on these sites:
USA Today
Chicago Tribune
The Hartford Courant
Boston Globe