SC and the fire alarm

[Boochan]

It was a horribly (rare) smoggy day here today, so I'm surprised ours didn't go off. The smoky smell went through the whole centre too, so everything stunk the whole day...

[trunks2k]

Way back in the day there was a gas leak in the shopping center my grocery store was located in, prompting the whole shopping center to be be evacuated. There were fire fighters walking through the store telling people that unless you are in the middle of being checked out, you need to leave NOW. People were actually arguing with them. It took over 20 minutes to get everyone out of the store.

[Sylvia727]

The fire alarm in my dorm hall has gone off seven, count 'em, seven times this year. The first time was a scheduled drill near the beginning of the year. Okey dokey. Another time the maintainence were repairing a broken furnace and left it broken over night. The girls in the room above left their windows open all night for the fresh air and the fumes set off the alarm at 9:30 AM. The other FIVE times have been caused by a short in one of the rooms. The same room each time, and at ten or eleven pm each time. The first time, the RAs thought the kids were messing around and told the entire hall whose room it was. I'm told some street justice was *attempted*, however these guys play for sports teams so no go.

After the second time, the maintainence guys found the short. The RAs placed a call to the company, were told a tech could be out in two weeks. Somehow the tech keeps getting rescheduled. The alarm goes off about every two weeks, always at the beginning of a normal sleep cycle, and each time I see at least one student in a towel-toga with dripping hair. My RA told me that they've resorted to calling the company every other day to bitch about the safety hazard, but they keep getting brushed off.

I know a number of people who now skip the fire alarm regularly, assuming it to be just another short circuit. I don't, because I know the first one I skip will be the real fire I just bring a book and sit on the front steps.

[Bagga]

We had a great fire drill in one place I worked. As he left, one worker carelessly threw his cigarette into a waste paper bin. We all stood outside enjoying the free break from work, the firmen turned up, did there usual brief check of the building while we gossiped outside.

Suddenly they raced out of the building , a real WTF? moment for us, and started the sort of "real" activity we weren't expecting at all. Apparently one corner of his office was ablaze...

Great stuff.

______________________________

Or there was the fire drill we had in a tower office block. Of course we weren't allowed to use the lift. The drill was at tea break time, so one worker carried her saucer and full cup of tea all the way down 8 flights of stairs. She was written up for that.

[trunks2k]

The fire alarm in my dorm hall has gone off seven, count 'em, seven times this year.

Only seven? That's nothing. When I was a Freshman in college, it went off well over a dozen times over the year. Once the alarm to our dorm went off three times in one night. Some drunk jackass kept pulling the alarm. After the third time, the RA's refused to let us back in the dorms so we all had to find somewhere else to sleep. We had to go crash in the common room of a friend's dorm. Did I mention that it was almost 4AM by this point?

[Sylvia727]

If my RA refused to let me back in my dorm room, particularly in the middle of a school night, there would be holy hell to pay. And if they ever found the drunk idiot, I would expect him to be written up or kicked out of the hall. I'm here to learn, which requires me to get sufficient sleep. I don't pay my housing fees just for shits and giggles.

The girl who was in my dorm room last year dropped by at the beginning of the year to chat, and one of the stories she told me raised my blood pressure. Apparently she got tired of studying at 1:30 AM during finals week, so she cooked microwave popcorn and held it up to the sensor as she opened it. She turned the entire hall out in the middle of the night before their finals because she was bored. I about strangled her. I did tell her that I was glad she wouldn't be in the hall this year, as I intended to actually do some work. She left in a hurry.