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Maybe our building needs cooking classes...

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  • Maybe our building needs cooking classes...

    So in the past three months alone, we have been evacuated from the building four times, the first three of these within the space of a fortnight. We will normally go months without having an evacuation. My office is on the sixth floor. Yeah...trying to hobble down stairs with runners knee is not fun .

    The cause of the evacuations? Well...

    #1 - one of the tenants who shares our building with us on-campus ended up tripping the smoke alarm due to burning some toast.

    #2 - this was a planned fire drill and we did in fact have communication of this in advance. Didn't make it any less funny though since we'd already had a "practice" run from the last evacuation.

    #3 - in a fit of delicious irony, one of the fire exit signs started smoking (basically, the maintenance guys had been in to look at said sign and screwed up somehow)

    #4 - one of OUR students managed to trip the smoke alarm because they had misread the instructions on a packet of croissants and stuck one of them in the microwave for 4 minutes (they saw the word "oven" and thought it referred to "microwave oven") in the student breakroom. I have yet to determine which one of our students it is...

  • #2
    I feel you on the fire evacuations with dodgy joints. (Mine are the hips.)

    A few jobs ago, the entire 25 storey office building banned toasters. Yep, you did just read that right. Toasters were banned. Any company that was found to have a toaster in their kitchen area was fined and the toaster removed by the cleaners. (No choice on the cleaning company as it was part of the lease agreement.)

    Apparently in the first 12 months of the building being completed and companies moving in, there were fire alarms set off by toasters approx 20 times.

    This building held the most of the smaller studios for a major TV station. The news was actually interrupted at least once because a toaster fire alarm. (When shit goes wrong, the station will just switch from the Melbourne news studio to Sydney's news studio.)

    After I left, birthday candles were also banned. Stopped by to visit about 6 months after I left and was talking to one of the security guys, the same one that told me the news story. One of the bigger companies was celebrating the head honcho's birthday. The turned a significant age so there was lots of candles. That wasn't the issue. The issue was that someone had used the candles that re-light. So picture, if you will, a cake with 60 candles that don't blow out. Then picture that in a boardroom. A closed in boardroom. That has a smoke detector alarm in it. I'm sure you can guess the rest.
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    • #3
      BG - Makes me wonder how many offices tried to get around it by bringing in a toaster oven.
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      • #4
        Quoth EricKei View Post
        BG - Makes me wonder how many offices tried to get around it by bringing in a toaster oven.
        Funnily enough, we actually HAVE a small toaster oven in the staff kitchen, when gets used whenever we hold training sessions for the mentors. That has yet to trip the fire alarm.

        I should note that the student I mentioned in the OP is likely one who does not speak English as a first language, so I can't fault them TOO much... (Although that student did learn very quickly to ASK next time they didn't understand something)

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        • #5
          When had sandwich presses in all the kitchens. If you wanted toast, you just turned one on, put bread on the hot plate, dropped the top/lid and waited a minute. The result was yummy, slightly squished toast that didn't set off the alarms.
          A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. - Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

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          • #6
            My company is in a building by itself, so unexpected fire alarms are rare. However, at one time we were sharing a building with some other businesses, including a doctor's office on the first floor. One day, someone had taken their kid to the doctor, and the kid pulled one of the fire alarms. And what made it worse was that we all had to run outside on one of the coldest days of the year.

            And as if that wasn't enough, when the fire trucks were leaving, one of them sideswiped a parked car.
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            • #7
              what kind of idiot, language or not, puts a croissant in a microwave for FOUR minutes? 30 seconds is plenty. Maybe even 20.

              On that same note microwave popcorn is banned from our work, I imagine for the same smoke alarm issues.
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              • #8
                I wish I could ban a particular co-irker from the microwave. I do not know what she cremated in there, but the smell gave me a bad sinus headache. This does not play well with phone work.
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                • #9
                  Frozen garlic toast has been banned from my office. Some things sink up a building real good over cooked frozen garlic toast isn't one of those things. Many years ago I banned Christmas music all I had to do was throw the cassette player out in the yard and then shoot it (Yes I was being safe.) That rule really struck home with everyone for some reason.
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                  • #10
                    Quoth Tanasi View Post
                    Many years ago I banned Christmas music all I had to do was throw the cassette player out in the yard and then shoot it (Yes I was being safe.) That rule really struck home with everyone for some reason.
                    I would love to do this. I detest xmas music. It is the same over sickly sweet mush sang by different people when their careers start waning.

                    The only exceptions to my hatred of xmas music is the songs done by the Muppets (because how can anyone hate the Muppets), Happy Christmas (War is over) by John Lennon and Blue Christmas sung by Porky Pig. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8YQqK5e5es

                    One of the places I temped at in Dublin had a radio in the room with us. The person I was working with LOVED christmas music and insisted that the radio by on that 24/7 christmas music station. I managed to convince him that he could listen to it before I started for the day and when I was at lunch, but it took nearly 3 weeks to do so. It was October when I started. Can you imagine how insane it would have driven me by December?
                    A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. - Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

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                    • #11
                      Talking about cooking classes... One of my housemates has the delusionary psychosis that you can't ever never wash cast iron, so every time he cooks *we* are fumigated with the fumes of twenty years of rancid grease! I'm certain he's fried up a roadkill stripy cat!
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                      • #12
                        Quoth Blue Ginger View Post
                        I would love to do this. I detest xmas music. It is the same over sickly sweet mush sang by different people when their careers start waning.

                        The only exceptions to my hatred of xmas music is the songs done by the Muppets (because how can anyone hate the Muppets), Happy Christmas (War is over) by John Lennon and Blue Christmas sung by Porky Pig. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8YQqK5e5es

                        One of the places I temped at in Dublin had a radio in the room with us. The person I was working with LOVED christmas music and insisted that the radio by on that 24/7 christmas music station. I managed to convince him that he could listen to it before I started for the day and when I was at lunch, but it took nearly 3 weeks to do so. It was October when I started. Can you imagine how insane it would have driven me by December?
                        Once upon a time I worked in an office that was all women except for me and a part time guy. Starting after Thanksgiving all they played was Christmas music. It just about drove me insane. They played the same three tapes for four weeks straight. The week of Christmas I took a screw driver and disabled the tape player. That was wrong but I couldn't take it any more.
                        BTW when I said I shot the cassette player at my office, I really did. A .45 makes a really loud noise. When I went back inside I laid my pistol on my desk, no one said one word. The next day someone brought in another boombox but they set it to play rock and roll. Didn't have to shoot that one.
                        Bow down before me for I am ROOT

                        Preserving precious bodily fluids sine 1952

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                        • #13
                          Quoth telecom_goddess View Post
                          what kind of idiot, language or not, puts a croissant in a microwave for FOUR minutes? .
                          Like I said, I have a feeling that they saw the word "oven" and thought it was referring to "microwave oven," skipping the instructions on the packet that would've said "stick in microwave for 30 seconds at best."

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