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US workers rethink jobs since Sept. 11

Elizabeth Pruser decided to spend US$40,000 of her retirement savings on home improvements after Sept. 11 -- and for a trip to Paris, her first vacation in 20 years.

Pruser, 60, a public defender from Queens, New York, said the terrorist attacks rearranged her priorities.

"I might as well take care of some things now, rather than relying on the future," she said. "You really have to live for today."

The attacks that killed more than 3,000 people a year ago caused many Americans to make changes in their lives, according to interviews in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, Washington and San Francisco. Some became volunteers, some switched careers. Many people said they just began trying to enjoy every day.

Thomas Corona, a senior vice president at brokers Tradition North America Inc, remembers his office building near the World Trade Center shaking when the hijacked jets crashed into the twin towers, and how he fled amid bodies in the street.

For years, Corona worked 10-hour days and played golf on weekends, he said. Now he leaves work two hours early three days a week to play with sons Thomas Jr, 13, Patrick, 8, and William, 6.

He has given up golf on Saturday to be with his family.

"I still get up at the same time, get to work at the same time," Corona said. "But do I stay as long? No. I refocused on what was important."

Gloria Barone, public relations director for Cigna Corp's group insurance unit in Philadelphia, said that, as a result of the attacks, she and her husband are trying to adopt a child.

"I thought, maybe I can't change the world, but I could do one good thing for one person on Earth," said Barone, who has a 15-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn, from a previous marriage.

To affirm life is a natural response to the attacks, said Mindy Fullilove, a professor of clinical psychiatry and public health at Columbia University in Manhattan and cofounder of NYC Recovers, an alliance of nonprofit service organizations.

"When you get that kind of shock, you ask yourself, `How do I make sense of the world?'" she said. "Part of making sense of the world is deciding what you value."

Ozzie Flores, a divorced father and United Parcel Service driver from Brooklyn, said he's now in closer touch with his nine-year-old twins, Elyse and Devin.

Flores said he sometimes used to let three days pass without contacting his children, who live with their mother. Now he calls them as often as two or three times daily.

"I don't take things for granted like I did," he said. "Tomorrow is just not promised."

Savannah Stokes, 32, decided to channel her energy into volunteer work. She took part in a San Francisco AIDS walkathon, helped plant trees at an elementary school and each week reads to children with learning disorders.

"It provides me with a lot of immediate satisfaction and gives me some hope for the future," said Stokes, who supervises a program for college students and interns at Electronic Arts Inc, a maker of video games in Redwood City, California.

Some people said the acts of terror pushed them into trying new careers.

David Dempsey, 48, a real estate lawyer in Atlanta, had long told partners he wanted to phase out his involvement in the firm to devote himself to writing. Still, he didn't do it.

"The lure of the money was too much," he said. "How everything can be taken away made me realize I needed to do something more meaningful."

Dempsey gave his partners a plan for his departure, then completed a book on public speaking he had been trying to write since 1996.

"It really became a crusade of mine to get the book done," he said.

To be sure, not everyone is able to affirm life by pursuing long-cherished dreams.

Camla Singh, for instance, said she still works 60 hours a week at a coffee bar in Manhattan's Gramercy Park section.

"I'm the mother of two children, so the priority is not what I want, but what I can do for my kids," she said, adding that she tries to be nicer to people these days.

Many people feel more vulnerable since the attacks, and some say they've become wary.

"I catch myself looking at people once in a while, scrutinizing where people are from and whether they are dangerous," said Deborah Byrd, a Boeing Co machinist from Pacific, Washington.
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