SSewmu.org Just What if I make mistakes?

The Great Geeks. Continued

The financial district requires communications and computer technology to keep the economy humming along. Putting the financial district back into running order required the people who know how to do it. Many companies had backup plans in place in case of catastrophic data losses, with the assistance of specialized firms such as SunGard. Barely two hours after the attacks, a carload of shaken, dust-covered employees of a shipping firm drove into SunGard’s parking lot. The shipping firm’s offices at the World Trade Center had been destroyed, but these employees managed to save computer tapes from their data center before rushing out of the burning tower. SunGard got the company’s network running within hours.

From Ground Zero in Manhattan, 150 technicians from Microsoft’s financial services group mobilized on the day of the attack. One techie, who escaped the collapse of one tower, was back the next day to help rebuild software applications. The goal of all this intense effort? To be prepared for the reopening of Wall Street. Thanks to the sustained efforts of hundreds of unsung Geeks, the center of the world financial markets opened at the market bell, on Monday, September 17.

We used to celebrate the clever and the expensive and the glamourous. No more. Hollywood seems pointless. Skeptical pundits used to make their living trying to convince us that we all ought to be as cynical as they. Only suckers do right, just because it is right. Who can believe that now?

Critics of capitalism make their livings trying to convince us that businessmen are all out for themselves. But that is not the whole story, by a long shot. People in the work-a-day world of business are not so different from the rest of us. The captains of industry and high finance are not devoid of either empathy or heroism. The world needs lots of skills and talents to make it go around. Most of the time, most people get paid for what they do and know. We could dismiss the contributions of the firemen by saying they were only doing their jobs, which of course, they were. That doesn’t stop us from recognizing that their jobs on a particular day in September took them above and beyond the call of duty.

Likewise, many of the men and women in business have come through for the community. True, these employees and companies didn’t risk their lives. But they did what they could. People from every walk of life will go that extra mile, the one for which they don’t get paid. What more can we ask?