You Think I Do WHAT? Vol. 5

One of you was an entry writer on September 12, 2001. The day after.

Every plane in America was grounded. The sky was empty. The whole country was holding its breath.

And the phone rang.

It was an importer. Let’s call her Brenda. Nearly in tears. Not about the news. Not about the country. Not about a single human being.

About a pallet.

Brenda’s freight was stuck at a shut-down airport, her plant was about to go dark, and she had one question for me:

“Can you call the FAA and ask them to reopen the airport? So we can grab our cargo?”

…I’m sorry. Can I call who?

Brenda thought I had the number. She genuinely believed that somewhere in my desk, right next to the stapler, I kept a direct line to the Federal Aviation Administration.

She pictured me picking up a red phone. Getting patched through to a man in a situation room on the single worst day of his career. And saying: “Hey — I know the entire country’s grounded and everything, but Brenda here is really in a bind. Any chance we pop the national airspace back open? Just for the one 747? We’ll be quick.”

That is the amount of power Brenda believed I had. On September 12th.

No, Brenda. I do not have a batphone to the FAA. I do not control the skies. I am not a wizard, a senator, or the ghost of Amelia Earhart. I am an entry writer. My entire superpower is knowing which box to tick on a 7501.

I promise you the FAA was not standing by going, “Well, we were going to keep every aircraft in the nation grounded… but Brenda’s plant is low on components, so — wheels up.”

She wasn’t a bad guy. She was scared, and her brain grabbed the one lever it thought it could pull. It just happened to be a lever that has never, in the entire history of flight, existed.

All these years later, I still think about it. Because that’s the job. Some days you’re the wizard. Some days you’re the calm voice explaining to a grown adult that no, you cannot personally reopen American airspace for her freight.

Same career. Wildly different Tuesdays.