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Friday, September 2, 2011

This is a drill, right?

Trying to get back into the swing of things, it's been so long since I tried to do regular updating on a site, and honestly, my life is so monotonously boring, it's hard to come up with anything of interest.  But, yesterday, there was something I think worthy of a giggle.  Well, if by giggle, I mean, damn, how stupid can we all be, then yes, it was laughable.

The end of last week, I received a memo that I was asked to forward to all employees.  (I'm the receptionist, so I get this task from time to time.)  One day this week, the building would be conducting fire alarm testing, and we were to simply ignore the alarms, and there was an apology for any inconvenience, and that they would attempt to complete testing quickly.  The date was also given somewhere in the memo, as to when they would actually do the testing. 

Yesterday afternoon, roughly 12:15pm, the alarm started going off, while I was in the supply room putting supplies away.  Another person was in there using the laminator.  We looked at each other, and said.. "this was the drill, right?  we don't have to leave, we can ignore.. yea, ok." It continued to signal for several minutes, and my ears were ringing, as 1 of the bells was right over our heads.  I finished quickly then and started for my desk.  Not that it was really quieter there.  As I approached my desk, one of our security guys comes up to me and simply says "Meg, get out" and I replied, "I thought this was a drill.." and he came back with.. "That was *yesterday*.  Crap.  Snagged my purse, and off I went.  Down 4 flights of stairs.. for the 2nd time in .. 2 weeks?  When did we have that earthquake?  Yea, I really don't do stairs that much.

Apparently, a LOT of people were thinking the same as me.. this was the drill and not the real deal.  Next time, if they announce a drill & to ignore the alarms.. guess who may be the first one out of the building if/when alarms are heard? 

Oh, and our building is fine.  Some smoke was seen on the 5th floor (top floor) and after all the firetrucks showed up, it wasn't long before they all left.  In all, we were outside about 30 minutes, plus the 15 minutes that we all wandered around thinking, "damn, the alarms work, drill's over, shut em off already!" 

Personally, I think someone burned thier popcorn!

1 comment:

  1. Supplies are usually highly flammable, so next time, even if it's a drill, go hang out by the water cooler.

    I had the same 'real alarm that may as well have been a false alarm' experience when staying in Buffalo, NY. I was on the 18th floor when I was told to exit via the stairs because smoke was seen on the premises.

    My hamstrings seized around the 8th floor but I finally exited all Frankenstein-like and stood at street level with the other evacuees. In the end, the kitchen had burned some food and it lit a backsplash on fire. It was put out via fire extinguisher before the fire trucks even exited their garage. But the fire alarm forced us all to evacuate. Lame!

    I should sue for physical distress.

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