A little fire never hurt anyone...

[Beki710]

So this happened to my boyfriend, but he's happy for me to post it

A couple of weeks back at the supermarket he's the manager at (the one I used to work at and where we met!) one of his CW runs into the office to say one of the freezers is smoking.

He runs out and there's smoke coming from underneath it. Now this could mean 2 things. 1. The freezer is on fire, and it sits above a pipe of flammable liquid. 2. something has fallen down the grate and onto the machinery, over heated and it smoking a bit. Obviously situation 1 is very dangerous but at that point there's no way to tell.

So he smashed the fire alarm and the staff start to evacuate the building. Luckily for them it's 9pm an hour before closing and there's only about 10 people in the store.

Most people leave understanding there could be a serious fire, some grumbling.

My BF goes to do a final check and in the aisle where the smoking Freezer is, is a woman with 2 toddlers.

BF: You need to get out the shop. NOW
SC: I just need to get a few things
BF: You are standing next to a smoking Freezer which could explode.
SC: This is so irritating! Do you realise I need these things for my kids?
(BF is wondering why the hell these kids aren't in bed at 9pm)
BF: Seriously you have to leave now the fire brigade are coming
SC: FINE!
As she turns to pick up her son, his shoe falls off. Instead of grabbing the shoe, she bends down and starts to put it back on his foot!
BF: I don't think you understand how serious this is, you need to leave right this instance!
SC: I can't believe how rude you are! I'm not taking my son out without his shoe!
BF: If you don't take your son outside right now I will!
SC: You dare touch my child!

She picks up her son, now with his shoe on and her other child

SC: I'm going to report you to your manager!
BF: I am the manager!

So after the the fire brigade arrive, they have to close the store for the rest of the evening which caused more grumbling. Turns out something had just blown down the grate so it was okay. But all the Freezers had to be shut down, which caused a lot of annoyance the next day!

(He did manage to get me in a panic when he called to explain why he would be late home from work. Nearly gave me a heart attack when he said "I'm gonna be late out tonight we've had a fire... ...I mean a suspected fire")

[Clover]

What an idiot! If I had children and they could be in danger, even if the danger wasn't obvious to me, I would have them out of there immediately! What kind of irresponsible person would want to continue shopping when there could be a fire, and want to stop and take the time to put a child's shoe back on instead of just grabbing it and getting the heck out?

Man. This lady needs to have her house burn down like mine did. That'd change her opinion about how dangerous fires are!

[taxguykarl]

What kind of irresponsible person would want to continue shopping when there could be a fire, and want to stop and take the time to put a child's shoe back on instead of just grabbing it and getting the heck out?

An SC, of course....or was that query rhetorical? I so agree with your second point, I went through an apartment fire and got to 'celebrate' my 30th birthday salvaging my things and wiping soot off everything.

[tropicsgoddess]

She sure could've used a and a clue by 24. I mean how dumb can somebody be not to GTFO because of a possible fire/explosion?!!

[underemployeed]

Lets see, when I used to work in a gas station c-store, I almost walked out when there was a truck on fire at one of the pumps because I'm sorry, they didn't pay well enough to risk my safety. I also got yelled at for grabbing the WRONG fire extinguisher..... they are ALL the same type. but manager wanted me to grab the one outside at the pumps instead of inside on the wall as I walked out easy access, And got mad when I told her I almost broke the glass with my foot because I didn't know that it would be possible to lift the glass up and slide the extinguisher out.... Some people have no sense at all.

People also get mad when you follow procedure and kill all pumps in event of a fire.

[MoonCat]

Companies can be just as bad. Years ago when I was new on the job, any time a fire alarm went off in the building, our dept. manager would tell us to stay on the phones until he found out if it "was really an emergency."

That stopped when a co-worker's husband, who happened to be a firefighter, found out about it.

Don't ask me why we were dumb enough to listen to management on that to begin with. I guess we were all afraid of losing our jobs.

[Sarthor]

A place I used to work at tested the fire alarms every week, on the same day at roughly the same time. The alarms would go off for just a few seconds. There was a guy in the office with a quirky sense of humour and every week after the test would shout out 'DON'T PANIC - DON'T PANIC'. This happened one time when he was at a computer with a co-worker and she literally jumped 2ft straight up out of her chair. Everyone just burst out laughing.

Another story happened when I was at University. The campus I was at was organised in 3 story houses with 11 students in each house. Of those, 10 would be first year students and there would also be a later-year student who in return for getting one of the limited (cheap rent) rooms would be there to help out the others with any problems, as many of them would be living away from home for the first time. I did this during my second year.
One day early in the morning, one of the guys in my house went a pulled the fire alarm for a joke. This prompted an evacuation of all the houses, around 600 students and staff who had to stand around on a winter's morning for 20-30 minutes while everything was sorted out (about a third of them were 18-19 year old girls, many of whom were in their sleep-wear, so not a total loss <grin>).
Being the guy in charge of the house, I had to find out what happened and write a report. The guy in question was a bit of a pain, him and his friends regularly causing a mess in the communal areas so I wasn't too motivated to do much to stop him being kicked off campus. Not that I could have done much anyway since setting off the fire alarm without cause was the actual example used in our welcome packs of an action that would get you kicked to the kerb.

But yeah, for the campus fire drills it was a nightmare trying to get students out of their rooms since the drills always happened before 9am. How they could stay in their rooms I don't know since the alarms were LOUD. Loud enough to cause pain. Luckily there were no real evacuations while I was there although I did witness a number of fat fires in the kitchen.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

This is why I'm an adherent of the principles of applied Darwinism.

If they're that goddamned stupid, then let Uncle Chuck deal with them. The genepool will thank you.

[Gizmo]

A place I used to work at tested the fire alarms every week, on the same day at roughly the same time.

That reminds me that our office does the same and one morning I was walking into the office *just* as the alarm went off. I literally had one foot in the door and the alarms started shrieking!

Unfortunately when they check ours they also test the hydraulics etc so it takes about 10 minutes to stop shrieking.

[PatchO'Black]

This is why I'm an adherent of the principles of applied Darwinism.

If they're that goddamned stupid, then let Uncle Chuck deal with them. The genepool will thank you.

The problem is that these idiots usually don't just remove themselves from the gene pool, they have a tendency to take a few other folks with them. Case in point, the woman had her two children with her. If it had been her alone, then one might have had less incentive to try and get her to see the sense in leaving.

[downforit2008]

What an idiot! If I had children and they could be in danger, even if the danger wasn't obvious to me, I would have them out of there immediately! What kind of irresponsible person would want to continue shopping when there could be a fire, and want to stop and take the time to put a child's shoe back on instead of just grabbing it and getting the heck out?

Man. This lady needs to have her house burn down like mine did. That'd change her opinion about how dangerous fires are!

Her house would burn down with her STILL INSIDE IT with her kids! She'd probably be trying to get all their clothes and shoes on, then be having them wait for her while the walls catch fire because she wants to get all their belongings out. What an idiot dumbass woman!

I work at Walmart and about 2 years ago, I was pushing carts when I noticed that because some idiot tossed a lit cigarette into our garbage can next to one of the entrances, it ignited some papers in there and the entire can was going up in flames, spreading smoke and sparks into the doorway of the store entrance. I dropped everything I was doing and managed to put it out before it got too serious. The bosses never even thanked me for my trouble in doing so, but it's all okay since I'm used to not being noticed. Some of the customers thanked me, though, and to me, that was all that mattered.

[Seshat]

*sigh*

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.
Coconut Grove.
MGM Grand.

How long is it going to take for people to LEARN?

[Dreamstalker]

I'd say never. They'll be standing in the path of an end-of-the-world lava flow and whining that someone should turn the AC up, it's too hot

One day I had stopped into a Starbucks, and just after I made my order one of the machines decided to start smoking (as it turned out, it was a mechanical failure but they wisely decided to evacuate anyway and let the fire department check it out). There were a few SCs who insisted in staying to wait for their drinks...you mean the drinks that are made on the machine that just blew up? (that caused blowups of another variety...no, they can't wave a wand and fix it)

I mean geez, I love my coffee as much as anyone, but if there's smoke and sparks I'm not waiting around.

[underemployeed]

One day early in the morning, one of the guys in my house went a pulled the fire alarm for a joke. This prompted an evacuation of all the houses, around 600 students and staff who had to stand around on a winter's morning for 20-30 minutes .....
The guy in question was a bit of a pain, him and his friends regularly causing a mess in the communal areas so I wasn't too motivated to do much to stop him being kicked off campus. Not that I could have done much anyway since setting off the fire alarm without cause was the actual example used in our welcome packs of an action that would get you kicked to the kerb.

He is lucky if he only got kicked out of school. In my state it is a felony and can land you with some serious jail time. Moral of the story, you better be damn sure that your defense of the magical dragon chasing you nets a lesser drug charge/insanity plea.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

*sigh*

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.
Coconut Grove.
MGM Grand.

How long is it going to take for people to LEARN?

Add another one to the list:

Texas City Disaster.

As per your question, unfortunately they still DON'T learn a damn thing.