Let's all ignore the fire alarm

[bunrotha]

This is a common pain in the arse where fire alarms go off too much.

Last-but-one job had Facilities (the bogs and boilers dept) replace the odd alarm sounder so the resulting cacophony was painful enough to move the "nah, not unless there's smoke" brigade.

Then we had the sprinklers. These were filled from the adjacent canal. Evil water-based fluid. Think River Ankh. They let it be known that the sprinklers might go off with any given fire alarm, and people moved much quicker.

Finally, we had the rugby fire marshals. Yours truly got fire marshal training on the basis I'm big enough and horrible enough, and was senior enough, to throw people bodily down the fire escape if it came to it. I never got to, but I was authorised to menace people loudly if necessary to make them evacuate. Since my dad was once an airfield fireman, I heard enough stories as a kid to respect fire alarms every single time. I was motivated.

Back when I was on FB, I remember a group called something like "The next time the fire alarm sounds, something better be BURNING" which some of my dept joined. I offered to light their desks on fire if they felt that strongly... yes I was kidding.

[raudf]

And if there was a real fire.. you'd have a certain percentage of idiots posting about it to FB or Twitter before evacuating. Death by Social media should get it's own form of Darwin Award.

[dalesys]

... Death by Social media should get it's own form of Darwin Award.

That would be OMGWTFBBQ, right?

[thatcrazyredhead]

This reminds me of a time my parents were staying with me when I lived alone. My dad was leaving for work, and I was awake enough to see him, but not enough for my brain to process it properly. I thought I saw a strange man dressed all in black coming in my front door. I'm told I shrieked bloody murder, but I don't remember doing it or even hearing it. My dad said, "IT'S OK, IT'S ME!" and I stopped screaming. It took a good long while for everybody's heart rate to go back down to normal, but none of my neighbors called the police or even came by to check on me. My mother said I could have been brutally murdered in that apartment and no one would have cared.

[greek_jester]

This is a common pain in the arse where fire alarms go off too much.

That brings to mind a story from before we moved into our nice, newly built office with actual windows and all offices fully above ground level.

In our firm we have the fire alarms tested once a week. The partner in charge of organising fire safety (among other maintenance-type things and the business recovery a.k.a. liquidations dept.) A.T., has an evil sense of humour, and that sometimes bleeds through into his scheduling of surprise fire drills *cough* 6 inches of snow *cough*

One week the alarms briefly went off as scheduled, went silent for about a minute, then came back on and stayed on. My office all duly stared at each other, a bit baffled, then collectively went "bugger it" and headed for the fire exit. Hey, 15 minutes outside on a nice sunny morning, much better than the partially-buried dungeon our office was stuck in!

Eventually the rest of the building trickled out, looking rather sheepish, to be given a bollocking by A.T. for ignoring a fire alarm - including the top partner of the entire firm! Needless to say our department was soundly praised for following fire safety procedures so promptly

[wolfie]

I'll admit to triggering my own alarm a few times due to my inability to cook, but at least I pull it off the ceiling and yank the batteries out when I do as I wait for the smoke to dissipate.

Another option is to wave something like a book or a piece of card under the smoke detector and once that bit of the air is clear, it should stop screaming. Then you can just wait for the rest of the smoke to clear.

Virtually all modern smoke alarms have a "silencer" circuit. Push and hold the test button for a second or so, and it'll operate at a reduced sensitivity for around 10 minutes. Too many people were taking the batteries out to silence nuisance alarms, and forgetting to put them back. This is also why modern alarms have a "finger" that pops out and prevents the "guts" from being installed on the ceiling bracket unless the battery is in place.

I never got to, but I was authorised to menace people loudly if necessary to make them evacuate.

Menacing people in order to make them evacuate? Does this mean your job description actually included scaring the shit out of people?

[bunrotha]

Menacing people in order to make them evacuate? Does this mean your job description actually included scaring the shit out of people?

Bloody right it did. 280lbs of rugby player (ok, lard in a shirt and tie, I admit it), wielding a CO2 extinguisher, inviting recalcitrant co-workers to move or be moved NOW, years before Terry Tate professionalised it. I am told the army missed out on a sergeant with my voice. Pulling the power cable out the back of a monitor was also very effective to the clueless.

[wolfie]

The smilie was because I was making a pun on the 2 meanings of "evacuate" (the medical meaning is a fancy way of saying "to take a dump". If someone were to read your initial post and interpret "evacuate" in the medical, rather than the fire safety, sense of the word, it would be saying (literally) that you scared the shit out of them.

[siead_lietrathua]

ugh. stupid fire alarm people. had one similar to the OP. hubs and i had an apartment that was kinda like all the rooms in a line. one night when we got home, we chilled for a while on one end of the line before going to bed on the other (for lack of a better way to put it)
when we got to bed, heard weird, faint chirping noise. opened window, and realized an alarm downstairs was going off.
for context, small old building with only a few apartments, but soundproofed floors and seperate entrances for each floor.
we went downstairs, and into the lower floor entrance. not only heard the alarm clearly, but people on that floor were in the hall, just blank sheep staring at the door with the alarm going off. asked them how long it had been going... more than 20 mins. asked if they called the FD. uhhhh no. siigh.
called the FD. turns out the idiot living there tried to make mac and cheeze while stoned off her gourd and passed out. cooking pot had burned enough there was a hole in the bottom. FD were not happy campers to have to deal with that horseshit, neither was landlord.
i just can't belive none of the sheeple called the FD.

[bunrotha]

The smilie was because I was making a pun on the 2 meanings of "evacuate" (the medical meaning is a fancy way of saying "to take a dump". If someone were to read your initial post and interpret "evacuate" in the medical, rather than the fire safety, sense of the word, it would be saying (literally) that you scared the shit out of them.

D'oh. *Now* I see what you did there. I must be being slow, sorry.