It's a fire alarm! At a petrol station! Run away!

[astyn-dbs]

Don't just walk into the damn store and act like business is usual! We were all having to yell to talk to the customers, but they didn't seem in the slightest bit worried.
Now admittedly, we were all standing around (in the store at least, away from anything really flammable) because the alarm was actually a monthly test gone wrong that we couldn't turn off. But seriously. Who the hell goes near a PETROL STATION when there's a FIRE ALARM going off??!!
It's like seeing someone wearing a uniform that says "Bomb Squad Technician" running at great speed away from a building and walking into it - he's the f**king bomb squad, if there's a problem, he knows where to go!

I'm gonna go get shitfaced. It's been a bad couple of days.

[Berys]

I do believe we have a few candidates for a Darwin award astyn-dbs. And yet, fire alarms do seem to be ignored more frequently lately. Guess people just treat them like car alarms: quick glance around to make sure it isn't yours, then move along

[jackfaire]

I am always waiting for the fire alarms to go off and people to "not know what to do" and act like they have never been in a fire drill because god forbid school was forever ago.

[cinema guy]

Part of fire training at the cinema is to tell people what to do when the alarm goes off - point to fire exit and loudly say "This way out!"

This is because people will either mill around like sheep or go looking for for the fire.

[Dreamstalker]

The alarms/detectors in our building can be so wacky that the only times we tend to actually listen to it is when it's in our apartment, the hallway alarms go off, or we can smell something. A staggeringly large number of apartments here have people who cannot cook (smoke detector used as kitchen timer), and last week, the CO alarm in the upstairs apartment was going off almost like clockwork, every day at 7 PM for about three minutes...obviously there was never any real emergency, so I'm not sure what was going on there.

[EricKei]

It's like seeing someone wearing a uniform that says "Bomb Squad Technician" running at great speed away from a building ...

This reminds me of my old p&p RPG games..and of a t-shirt I shamelessly ripped off from a website/shirt I saw in ages past...If a player took a Demolitions-type skill, I informed them that their starting inventory would always include a t-shirt which read (in the back), "BOMB TECHNICIAN. If you see me running, try and keep up"

[HYHYBT]

If you don't want people to ignore fire alarms, you need to make them so they only go off if there's actually a fire.

[LadyAndreca]

I almost slept through a fire alarm once because it was the same pitch as my college dorm's alarm, which one winter had crossed wiring and was going off randomly 3-4 times PER DAY. Some survival instinct said "Idiot, that's the FIRE ALARM, at least GO CHECK!"

Wouldn't you know that'd be the one time in my life there was a real fire?

[Crossbow]

"BOMB TECHNICIAN. If you see me running, try and keep up"

Or the military version: "An ordinance technician at a dead run outranks EVERYONE."

[Raveni]

If you don't want people to ignore fire alarms, you need to make them so they only go off if there's actually a fire.

I used to manage a C-store with a gas station. One fine morning, someone's car was overheating, so they tried to push it over to the gas pumps to get some water for the radiator because there was a spigot there for cleaning and such.

Turns out it was far too late and the car was actually on fire!

So, I hit the pump disconnect and call 911. Corporate logged 3 complaints from my store during the time that the fire truck was there and putting out the fire. These were customers that walked past the burning car at the pumps, came inside, and were upset that we would not turn the pumps back on until the fire was out.

[astyn-dbs]

If you don't want people to ignore fire alarms, you need to make them so they only go off if there's actually a fire.

We test our fire alarm once a month to make sure that it will work when there is a fire. I would happily cone the station off for the 15 or so seconds the test is SUPPOSED to take, but we aren't allowed. And it wouldn't matter if we did - the office lady regaled me with stories about the time the switchboard caught fire in the middle of the night last year. No power, no lights, all entrances coned off, people shifting cones, driving in and getting pissed when they can't get petrol.

It's going to be interesting when we hold our next mock emergency evacuation - they're supposed to be every six months, we're a couple of months overdue. I've worked for this company for three years now and NEVER been involved in one, but now that I'm the store's Health and Safety Officer I have to organize it and make sure everyone does what they're supposed to, and tell everyone off afterwards if they don't.


Shoot me now .

I almost slept through a fire alarm once because it was the same pitch as my college dorm's alarm,

Speaking of sleeping through them....I was living in a little flat with my best mate and another girl. The fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, but seemed to be playing up rather than there actually being a fire. We freaked out a bit, couldn't smell smoke or see flames but prepared to get out anyway. Woke up flatmate, who said "Oh it's ok. If something's wrong you guys will sort it out" and went back to sleep.

Dumb bitch.

[AriRashkae]

It's like seeing someone wearing a uniform that says "Bomb Squad Technician" running at great speed away from a building and walking into it - he's the f**king bomb squad, if there's a problem, he knows where to go!

[Astrokitty]

A staggeringly large number of apartments here have people who cannot cook (smoke detector used as kitchen timer)

Wait....it's not a kitchen timer?! Damn.

Those who know me well, know the world is a safer place when I don't cook.

But yes, I sympathize with you folks. Last year, my mom's wally store had a bomb threat and people got majorly pissed when they had to shut things down. Thankfully it was a false alarm. The next time it was a tornado warning. A tornado was ON-THE-GROUND just up the highway and people got pissed when associates left their registers to go to the center of the store where it was (theoretically) safer.

One SC: "But who's going to check me out?!"

Door Greeter: "Ask the tornado!"

[Dreamstalker]

If you don't want people to ignore fire alarms, you need to make them so they only go off if there's actually a fire.

Easier said than done. The cheap types we have tend to go off if it's especially humid out (typically this happens with the hallway units which only the fire department can silence); anything of the aerosol persuasion in the general vicinity also has a chance of setting it off.

[JPD]

The rule was mentioned earlier in the thread, but I felt like posting another comic that relates to it, so

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20091101.html