CALLOUS PA CLERK EVENTUALLY CANNED (WTC - The Man Who Didn't Care)

New York Post ^ | 8/30/03 | HEIDI SINGER

[kattracks]

August 30, 2003 -- The "man who didn't care" - a Port Authority clerk who callously kept copying reports after the first plane hit the World Trade Center - was later fired from his job for slacking off, his former boss told The Post yesterday.

[kattracks]

THE MAN WHO DIDN'T CARE (WTC)

[Imal]

Maybe he started to care later.

[muawiyah]

It's the wrappings.

[ARCADIA]

But "after 9/11, he began to take on a different attitude, which was very negative, and his work performance began to tail off and fall," Whitaker added.

The man who didn't care was probably just the man who was in shock. As for the performance issue; he probably didn't like his new assignment after 9/11. This is hardly news worthy stuff. It is just another impact of the tragedy and there were probably thousands of people who were affected in the same way. There were far more victims in the WTC attack then the 3000 who lost their lives.

[Wilhelm Tell]

"His performance was top notch ... But "after 9/11, he began to take on a different attitude, which was very negative, and his work performance began to tail off and fall."

That part at least sounds like burn-out. I have a feeling we might not have the whole story. Was he actually a cop, or was he a clerk? If he was a clerk, does anyone expect him to rush into the building and start rescuing people like the cops and firemen did? I know there were some people, including maintenance workers, engineers and such who did go beyond and above the call of duty and some of them died. I guess what I am saying is that if he didn't have experience rescuing people like the cops and firemen and didn't know the building or have mechanical aptitude like the maintenance people and engineers, he might have just been in the way. I mean, there are clerks at the hospital who don't help out in the emergency room by doing things doctors and nurses do. If he was a clerk that is one thing, if his job was to be a first responder and he didn't show up, that is another thing. Was he aware of the extent of what was happening?

I am not taking sides, because I really don't know enough about his situation to judge. I thought I would play devil's advocate with the questions that popped into my mind as I read the article.

[cajungirl]

I think he was criticized not for not helping out but for gabbing, having no reaction to the planes hitting the buildings, even saying it wasn't affecting him. Either he is an unimaginative type who could not fathom the immensity of what happened, or he is a stone cold self centered unfeeling person or he was in shock and denial. I cannot tell which of the three but his reaction after sure suggests the latter. People in shock can look completely unaffected by what has happened. I once saw a kid whose mother had been in an accident with her and the mom's head was cut off and the kid waited in the car for a long time for the cops to come. She was unfazed, it was like her brain had gone on hold. Maybe that happened to this fella. I remember at times feeling what happened on 911 wasn't read, like it was not happening.

[miss marmelstein]

Everyone reacted so differently to 9/11. After the two planes hit, my husband still insisted that he was going to take the train to work (in NYC). I practically had to bar the door. That evening, a friend called me and said, "Geez, the WTC is all anybody can talk about!" From where my friend and I live, you could see and smell the smoke from the Towers. Some people knew instantly that the world had changed - and some people thought it was just another day in the big apple.

[cajungirl]

You are so right. I work in a University. The older people, the grown ups I guess, were devastated. Every time we met each other in the hall or in the kitchen where the tv was on non-stop we would cry. I saw grown men cry. It truly shook our world. The kids just sort of breezed thru it except for a few, mostly foreign students. It was amazing to me how little they seemed to notice, I guess they were involved with romances, tests, etc. The out of town kids from the east coast were shaken. And the kids from the middle east were positively paranoid and frightened. It was the most shocking day I my life I do believe.

[randog]

The kids just sort of breezed thru it except for a few, mostly foreign students. It was amazing to me how little they seemed to notice, I guess they were involved with romances, tests, etc.

I would hazard to guess that kids, especially college kids, are insulated from real life. I went to college as an older returning student, and I can say that the kids around me had no clue as to what awaited them in the real world. Universities set up an unrealistic world for these kids (probably to make it easier to pump their melons full of liberal pap).

[cajungirl]

Yeah, and it was the beginning of school and football season and sorority rush and keg parties. They are pretty insulated.