Just minutes after the first tower collapsed, Maurice Matsumori was crouching in a pitch-black, dust-smothered lobby just yards from the World Trade Center, un-able to erase from his mind the horror he'd just seen: guys his age, dressed in suits and ties-guys who had probably just finished their morning coffee, like he had-falling from windows 100 stories high. He won-dered if they died doing the jobs they loved.rnIf he had been in the building that day, Mat-sumori knew his answer to that question would have been no. Sure, he still felt like a high roller every time he got a direct deposit on his nearly $75,000 salary-double what his buddies in his native Salt Lake City make. But now, he walks to work through a war zone and smells death all day long. In contrast to the groaning hell of Ground Zero visible out his window, his job as a quality-control specialist at AIG-where he helps the bottom line more than people-has lost much of its pre-Sept. 11 meaning. He used to flirt with the idea of becoming a college professor. Now, he's made the commitment, enrolling in school to get a PhD in education-small salary be damned. Says Matsumori, "This was the biggest wake-up call of my life."
展开▼
