She listened to the radio.

Actually, she drove mindlessly, returning from another visit to another store, another merger causing another reorganisation.

In the merchandising business, change is good – new clothes lines every season, new displays, new employees – a merry-go-round of ups and downs.

This visit felt different.

It felt the same.

She saw herself sitting on the back of a camel crossing an endless desert of mergers and acquisitions, the policies and procedures rewordsmithedonceagain to reflect both previous and current owners.

And there were always the concerns from upper management – “Are we going to hit our numbers this day/week/month/quarter?” – like woodpeckers ramming against her skull, digging, digging, digging, building a headache that drove her to unfamiliar hotel rooms night after night on the road to yet another store whose facades must change the next day.

When would it end?

An urgent voice came on the radio.

“It appears a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.  More details as it develops.”

She shook her head to wake herself up, driving so early from Detroit to get back home at a decent hour that she hadn’t taken the time for a good breakfast.

The announcer described the momentary confusion – “We interrupt your smooth music morning commute to give you the following information.  First reports from New York indicate a small plane, possibly in the fog, has exploded into the side of the World Trade Center.  One moment…no, now they’re saying that the size of the explosion indicates it had to be a larger plane.  Video footage shows that the skies were clear at the time of the crash.  We’re being told that smoke is billowing out of one of the towers.  Wait a minute…let’s go live to our correspondent on the ground in Manhattan.  Jeneva Jones, what do you see?”

She looked out the window.

How many pilots in the sky at this moment were possibly having a heart attack or lost control and were potential crash victims in the making?

Is that why she decided to drive from store to store instead of fly?

As she drove further south, the radio stations changed but the news did not.  Plane after plane seemed to be in attack mode along the East Coast.

When she stopped for gas, panic had infected everyone.  Rumours of invasions and security checkpoints spread from traveler to traveler, no one exactly sure what was going on.

She called her husband.  They assured each other that her plans to drive straight home were the best in the current situation.

The closer she got home, the more she knew what she was going to do.

She was going to quit her job.

It might be days or months before her next (dream) job became available, but she knew she had to change.

This day – the 11^th of September, 2001 – had answered the question she was afraid to ask, “Is what I’m doing right now the most important thing I could be doing for myself and others if we knew we were going to die today?”

In that next job, she was going to dedicate herself to the people who mattered – the workers, the volunteers, the customers – and avoid a job that forced her to pay attention to those who don’t matter – the worrisome managers and owners who only know how to cover their trails and cater to fickle stockholders and market analysts.