An announcement came over the intercom this morning. We are scheduled to have a fire drill. An actual fire drill. As in, stop working, walk down the stairs, go outside until they say we can come back inside.

It's just like being back in school! Just like in school they've waited to the coldest day of the year, too.

Oh, another announcement just came on. We can carry personal items but nobody is allowed to carry beverages down the stairs. It's a violation of the code. The code of what? A couple people just took their coffee and went down into the lobby via the elevators. I guess the code says that it is okay to bring beverages into the elevators.

I think the anti-beverage code must be a part time thing because I don't recall any signs or warnings on the doors or stairs themselves warning against carrying beverages. I use the stairs every day (going down only - the ground floor stairwell is locked from the outside so people can't sneak in the back door and go upstairs without passing security) but I guess it's possible that I missed a sign. If there's no sign there I'm going to put in an official request for one. Safety first you know, and who wants to be a code breaker?

I'm currently fighting a powerful urge to pull the fire alarm. What better time? Everybody's expecting it so nobody would panic but you still get all the benefit of sticking it to the man!

This will be my first fire drill since 1987. I thought that graduating from high school meant I had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that I knew how to exit a building.

Off to the pisser now. Nothing worse than standing around in freezing weather with a full bladder.

[Twenty minutes later]

Damn, that thing was loud! Annoyingly loud. And it was indeed cold outside. Very, very cold. And they kept us outside for over ten minutes. Sons of bitches.

Did I mention that I don't generally wear a coat? I don't really need one seeing as I go from the house to the car then the car to the building. Fucking cold.

Well, the building administrators can now rest assured that several hundred mature (to varying degrees) adults know how to walk down stairs and mill about smartly.

Posted by: Jim at 11:57 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 394 words, total size 2 kb.

1 You know they did it on purpose. You would, I would. Why wouldn't they?

Posted by: Paul at December 14, 2004 01:02 PM (vbP6L)

2 That thought did cross my mind. I cringed from it. Life could be bad if there were people like me in charge of me.

Posted by: Jim at December 14, 2004 01:21 PM (tyQ8y)

3 Did anyone ever tell them that using THE ELEVATOR during a drill is AGAINST CODE?LOL Or during any fire therefor.....LOL

Posted by: LW at December 14, 2004 02:12 PM (GCA5m)

4 Oh, they knew that. They went down in the elevator before the fire drill started. Very clever people 'round here.

Posted by: Jim at December 14, 2004 02:16 PM (tyQ8y)

5 "Did I mention that I don't generally wear a coat? I don't really need one seeing as I go from the house to the car then the car to the building." And I thought I was the only one. Actually, I wear a coat from the house to the car, but I leave it in the car to walk the 20 steps to the door at work. Reason being that the coat closet is inconveniently located, and it's a pain to go fetch the damn thing at lunch. Plus it would make me stay an extra 30 seconds or so at the end of the day, which is 30 seconds too damn long in MY book.

Posted by: Harvey at December 15, 2004 12:25 AM (ubhj8)

6 Harvey lives in Wisconsin. Jim lives in Georgia. Who's the real man here?

Posted by: Susie at December 15, 2004 07:30 AM (3nS88)

7 Hey now. I spent my formative years in Little Antarctica (aka Buffalo, NY). I got the street cred.

Posted by: Jim at December 15, 2004 08:04 AM (tyQ8y)

8 We have so many fires where I work that we don't need to drill for it. In the year I've been at this place we have had 3 fires, plus the transformer at the end of the block blew up. We are starting to know the firemen by name.

Posted by: Machelle at December 15, 2004 03:33 PM (ZAyoW)

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