Ordinary jobs, transformed by terror

By Harry Bruinius, Seth Stern, and Frank Bures

Rachel Sussman has become well-accustomed to the workaday worries of her Manhattan job: Will the package she sent by messenger arrive on time? Is the copy machine working properly? What if the company network crashes when she needs to send an important e-mail ASAP?

Today, however, when danger lurks in an everyday task such as opening the piles of mail on her desk, work stress has become something much different.

Ms. Sussman is an assistant editor at a publishing company in Rockefeller Center, the same office complex in midtown Manhattan where an assistant to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw contracted the skin form of anthrax.

"The pile of mail produces a lot of anxiety, for obvious reasons," says Sussman. "It's hard. You hope that an event like this gives you perspective and makes you think of what's important - but you still get caught up in all the stupid things."

It is the small, tedious tasks that can make it a thankless job for administrative assistants, who represent one of the largest occupations in the US economy. They form the behind-the-scenes backbone of business, media, and government. Yet now, they find themselves among those at the forefront of the current bioterror scare.

Even beyond the power centers of New York and Washington, the old routines of many administrative assistants have become the first to be marked by the new symbols of self-protection: face masks and prophylactic gloves.

When Steven Cohn, a facilities assistant at a community college in Skokie, Ill., got his mail pack last week, he saw that the person who brought the mail was wearing gloves.

"I thought to myself, 'What am I going to do? Touch this mail after it was put on my desk after being delivered by a guy wearing protective gloves?' " says Mr. Cohn.

Staying calm in the midst of hectic, demanding days is a skill most administrative assistants have had to master. But even while the vast majority of assistants around the country are still more concerned with managing schedules and egos than the threat of anthrax, this struggle to maintain calm is perhaps most evident in those offices directly affected by anthrax-contaminated mail.

Kim Akhtar, the assistant to CBS news anchor Dan Rather, has been trying to take a low-key approach, even though she is literally in the middle of the attacks. Anthrax spores were found all over the carpet, computers, and desks of both her and Mr. Rather's offices after a contaminated letter was delivered. Rather's second assistant, Claire Fletcher, who worked next to Ms. Akhtar, was found to have the skin form of the disease.

"It's really important to be very levelheaded and to really just be cautious in what you do," says Akhtar. For the time being, all three are working together in a small, one-room office down the hall as their suite is torn apart, fumigated, recarpeted, and painted. "There's no sense in panicking, because if you panic, it always leads you to make decisions that are not necessarily the best ones."

- Harry Bruinius

Near the end of September, Shah Rohany stepped outside his Manhattan restaurant, Bamiyan. He wiped the word "Afghani" from the front window, collected the American flag vandals had ripped down seven times, and hung it carefully inside.

In the days immediately following the terrorist attacks, business dropped off 95 percent, Mr. Rohany says. Though it's recovered somewhat, he still has only about half the usual number of customers reclining on multicolored cushions to dine on his shish kebabs, tangy yogurt sauces, and pumpkin-and-meat-filled pastries.

"Business is very bad," says Rohany, a thin, gray-haired man with a mustache. While he's so far avoided laying off any employees, most of whom have worked for him for a dozen years, he says he can't last more than a few months if business doesn't improve.

Sitting in his Third Avenue restaurant, Rohany reminisced about the homeland he loves - but hasn't seen since 1978 - and spoke of his worry for his siblings, who still live in northern Afghanistan.

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