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In the space provided, please describe a time in your life when you experienced a tremendous amount of professional or educational change. Describe this transformative experience and its effects
Change is a constant.
Surely, you’ve heard that bland platitude dished as cold comfort when chaotic outside forces dictate circumstances seemingly beyond our control.
At 8:00 AM on Tuesday, September 11th, the azure skies and golden sunshine of Lower Manhattan greeted me with absolute certainty, assuring me of my given place in the world. It was an ordinary morning, set to a metered workday march about to break into a sheer hellish run for cover.
But at 8:00 AM, Monday, September 18th, a mere seven days later after the worst attack on American soil since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, I found myself and 1,300 of my closest Lehman Brothers colleagues crammed into the Metropolitan Ballroom of the Sheraton New York at 51st and 7th. Dick Fuld, the Firm’s imposing Chief, addressed the jittery crowd to assure us that our $13 billion of liquidity ensured our survival as a Firm. And, thanks to our close banking relationship with Starwood Partners, our new home would be the Sheraton Hotel.
So began my 15-month tenure working from room 963. I was greeted by polite, grateful hotel staff daily, relieved to have full occupancy into the foreseeable future. Our daily routine included hot coffee and assorted teas in the morning, soup-of-the-day room service at lunch, and fragrant white towels at the poolside for that after-work swim and workout in the hotel gym.
My “office” consisted of a hotel room without beds, a room safe, four six-foot folding tables, stackable cardboard files purchased from Staples, and a Bose Wave radio set to WQXR—NYC’s classical music station. Our television sets were removed by Management, so we congregated like nervous swallows by the elevator banks on each floor, monitoring CNN throughout the day. I diligently worked out of my new hotel home until January 2003, when our new office at 399 Park Avenue was finally finished and ready for occupancy. The hotel staff threw us a festive Hawaiian Luau goodbye party, genuinely sorry to see the last of us go.
9/11 taught me that people and relationships, not job titles and trophies, make the sum total of your life. Patience is not simply the ability to smile and feign interest through another mind-numbing and pointless meeting but the emotional steadiness needed to calm the nerves of a fellow employee who is so despondent that they feel they cannot ride the subway one more day to work within the confines of a stale hotel room.
Science recognizes that every seven years, the human body replaces every cell with a new one. In effect, we regenerate our entire beings. For me and others, the day of September 11th was transformative on a cellular level. What changed most profoundly was my psychology. My sense of security and entitlement to increasing material gain were obliterated. I now realize there is no demilitarized zone, not in lower Manhattan, not in the formerly “friendly skies.” Preparedness, access to information, and resilience became prerequisites for our new world order. As a result of my experiences, my ability to deal with stress and handle sudden and unperceivable change has been improved, along with the recognition that change can bring unexpected opportunities, new life paths, self-awareness, and growth.
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Change is a constant.
Surely, you’ve heard that bland platitude dished as cold comfort when chaotic outside forces dictate circumstances seemingly beyond our control.
At 8:00 AM, Tuesday, September 11th, the azure skies and golden sunshine of lower Manhattan greeted me with absolute certainty, assuring me of my given place in the world. It was an ordinary morning, set to a metered workday march that was about to break into a sheer hellish run for cover.
But at 8:00 AM, Monday, September 18th, I found myself and 1,300 of my closest Lehman Brothers colleagues jammed into the Metropolitan Ballroom of the Sheraton New York at 51st and 7th. Dick Fuld, the Firm’s imposing Grand Poobah, addressed the jittery crowd to assure us that our $13 billion of liquidity ensured our survival as a Firm. Our new home would be the Sheraton Hotel, thanks to our close relationship with Starwood Partners.
So began my 15-month tenure working from room 963. Every day, I was greeted by polite, grateful hotel staff, relieved to have full occupancy into the foreseeable future. Our daily routine included hot coffee and assorted teas in the morning, soup-of-the-day room service at lunch, and fragrant white towels at the poolside for that after-work swim and workout in the hotel gym.
My “office” consisted of a hotel room without beds, a room safe, four six-foot folding tables, stackable cardboard files purchased from Staples, and a Bose Wave radio set to WQXR—NYC’s classical music station. Our television sets were removed by Management, so we congregated periodically by the elevator banks on each floor, nervously monitoring CNN throughout the day. I diligently worked out of my new hotel home until January 2003, when our new office at 399 Park Avenue was finally finished and ready for occupancy. The hotel staff threw us a festive Hawaiian Luau goodbye party, genuinely sorry to see the last of us go.
9/11 taught me that people and relationships, not job titles and trophies, make the sum total of your life. Patience is not simply the ability to smile and feign interest through another mind-numbing and pointless meeting but the emotional steadiness needed to calm the nerves of a fellow employee who is so despondent that they feel they cannot ride the subway one more day to work within the confines of a stale hotel room.
Science recognizes that every seven years, the human body replaces every cell with a new one. In effect, we regenerate our entire beings. For me and others, the day of September 11th was transformative on a cellular level. What changed most profoundly was my psychology. My sense of security and entitlement to increasing material gain were obliterated. I now realize there is no demilitarized zone, not in lower Manhattan, not in the formerly “friendly skies.” Preparedness, access to information, and resilience became prerequisites for our new world order. As a result of my experiences, my ability to deal with stress and handle sudden and unperceivable change has been improved, along with the recognition that change can bring unexpected opportunities, new life paths, self-awareness, and growth.
The Stylesmyths: Vintage Fashion Reportage On Broadway 