Nervous MS employees...hmm.....Surprise Fire Drill!!!

[Morbo]

You may or may not have heard that the Microsoft office in Reno got a letter containing Anthrax, which so far has tested negative, then positive, then sent off to Atlanta and is awaiting the results. Needless to say, we are all a little edgy around here.

So what do the oh-so clever facilities people decide to do for us this morning? SURPRISE FIRE DRILL!!!

First of all, I have never even heard the excruciatingly loud fire buzzer right outside my office door go off before. When I heard it, I practically crapped my pants. Second, there was no pre-announcement in Email - this was a total and complete surprise. Third, our office is located about 200 yards from the NASA Ames Research Center and Moffet Field.

Instant, total hysteria. People were screaming, running around, nobody knew what was happening. They're lucky nobody had a heart-attack. They're lucky nobody was trampled in the madness. Shit, they're lucky there was no property damage - I was just about to throw my monitor through the window and follow it out.

When people finally saw the stupid "fire marshal" facilities guys with their fire drill hats on, things got even uglier. People were yelling, cursing, red-in-the-face. I thought there was going to be a riot. A riot of angry computer geeks. ::shudder::

Of all the asinine, moronic things to do, this has got to be up there. As of yet, no apology. And now, nobody really wants to do anything - we're all sort of sitting around, thinking about going home. Goddamn stupid fucking morons.

[Ice Wolf]

Aside from the Anthrax scares, on reading the above, what I find scary is that if that was the reaction of people to an unplanned alarm going off -- a lot may well have died if it had been a real fire.

Your bosses had better get their act together real quick and arrange more fire drills.

They are definitely morons for not doing this sooner, if that is the case.

[Morbo]

Originally posted by Ice Wolf
Your bosses had better get their act together real quick and arrange more fire drills.

I hadn't thought of that, but I guess it makes sense. Still, they should have told us we were going to have a fire drill, and not just "sprung" it on a bunch of nervous employees.

[Mangetout]

Hmmm, d'you think they'll pre-warn you when there's a real emergency?

Part of the idea of a drill is to test how people would react in a real emergency, then learn from that and implement improvements, you can't do that so effectively if you tell everyone it's coming.

[Rasa]

Reminds me of when I was working for MS's (former) largest outsource partner during the "Y2K" hysteria. I had a phone script that I was to use in case of a Y2K related "situation" in our building. Some of the gems I recall were: "Do not hang up on the customer. Tell the customer 'As you may hear in the background, we are [on fire/experiencing environmental problems/under alien attack (ok so I made that one up)]. If I may have your phone number, I will call you back once the situation is resolved and it is safe for me to return to my desk.' Only after obtaining contact information from the customer should you evacuate the building."

LOL can you imagine? We had a good time with those phone scripts, let me tell you. I don't miss working for MS, even as a contractor.

And as a side note, I used to drive by the Ames Research Center and Moffet Field daily on my way to work in Mountain View. We must've been almost neighbors!

[saepiroth]

well, as perspective, my school had a fire drill earlier today.

now, in middle school, they would always announce if a fire alarm was a drill or not. when it was a drill, people would take their damn sweet time and grab stuff before they left.

when some teacher lit a cigarette and set off the alarm without a warning, people panicked.



so, at my high school, they had an alarm the second day of school. they said that after that first one, they would never announce if it was a drill or not.

so, everyone would proceed out nicely and organizedly and noone would know if there was a fire or not until they turned around outside and noticed that someone must've made a mistake in chemistry lab.






anyway, the moral is that announcing fire alarms is a bad thing.

[Morbo]

Hey listen, I'm all for practicing drills, and I understand that we shouldn't even be warned about them.

But sounding a noisy alarm we've never heard before, less than a few days after somebody sent us Anthrax? I think they could have warned us about an upcoming fire drill, then said that there would be no warning for future drills. Their timing couldn't have been worse.

Unless they wanted to observe how we would all respond in a panic situation, which seems pretty damn risky and foolish to me, I don't see why they had to do it this way.

[Esprix]

Considering the circumstances, announcing this one would have been appropriate. Perhaps next month's might have been unannounced? Or at least warnings to people that after this one, they would be unannounced? I agree, Dook, that was pretty asinine of them, considering.

Esprix

[Rilchiam]

Originally posted by Dooku
First of all, I have never even heard the excruciatingly loud fire buzzer right outside my office door go off before. When I heard it, I practically crapped my pants.

I bet a lot of WTC employees practically crapped their pants, or did do so, the morning of 9/11. But plenty of them got to the fire stairs, and descended them.

Second, there was no pre-announcement in Email - this was a total and complete surprise.

Like...an emergency! Wow!

Third, our office is located about 200 yards from the NASA Ames Research Center and Moffet Field.

And that means what?

Instant, total hysteria. People were screaming, running around, nobody knew what was happening.

If they knew that an alarm was going on, they should have known enough to proceed out of the building by whatever route is proscribed. Wait, don't tell me: none of you have ever looked at those handy-dandy little maps on the wall by the elevators, with the red Family-Circus-dotted-line, showing you the safest way to get the hell out of Dodge.

They're lucky nobody had a heart-attack.

Just because the buzzer was loud? I admit that it might have been loud enough to induce a heart attack in and of itself. But it also sounds like no one with heart problems should work in your office, if y'all are likely to react to a medical emergency the way you reacted to this.

They're lucky nobody was trampled in the madness.

No, you guys are lucky you weren't trampled. There shouldn't be any "madness" during a fire drill. They teach you better in grade 1.

Shit, they're lucky there was no property damage - I was just about to throw my monitor through the window and follow it out.

Are you serious? You're reminding me of when I worked at Universal. They gave us a quiz on earthquake safety, but told us upfront that there's no real way to predict what will happen in an earthquake. It's not a matter of knowing what to do, just knowing what not to do. Basically, the multiple choice was one sensible answer, like "Stay away from power lines" (which you still might not have a choice about) and three joke answers like "Climb out a window" or "Find the nearest tree and hold on to it". "Throw your monitor out the window and follow it out." That's rich.

When people finally saw the stupid "fire marshal" facilities guys with their fire drill hats on, things got even uglier. People were yelling, cursing, red-in-the-face. I thought there was going to be a riot. A riot of angry computer geeks. ::shudder::

Of all the asinine, moronic things to do, this has got to be up there.

Yeahhhh...I'd say a crowd of computer geeks yelling and cursing at firefighters is pretty asinine and moronic! Do not fuck with those people; their fuses are short enough.

As of yet, no apology.

Well, you better get your narrow behinds to the fire station and apologize! You don't want them to remember this if/when there really is a fire!

And now, nobody really wants to do anything - we're all sort of sitting around, thinking about going home. Goddamn stupid fucking morons.

Yeah, why don't you get 100 tacos and take them home for the Doctor Who marathon.

[Rilchiam]

It has just occurred to me that your company may be planning to have a seminar on emergency procedures. Hopefully, the idea was to have the drill first, so that the staff would be willing to listen and remember, so that the events described in the OP wouldn't happen again. Please tell me that you will take such instructions seriously, if offered.

[Angel of the Lord]

I suppose that they could have announced it first, especially because, in your case, a "fire alarm" could actually be "someone just got a deadly microbe in the mail." (Or, if you will, CoffeeMate ). But, then again...how much advance notice could you expect in a real emergency? Still, it's kinda crappy of them to do it *right now*. I'd lay odds that they'd had this planned since before the anthrax, or before 9/11, and decided to go through with it anyway. Or it was in response to these things.

On a somewhat related tangent...last month, the Powers That Be Runnin' My Dorm decided to run a surprise fire drill. At 10:30 at night. This wouldn't have been so bad, except for the fact that some people were already in their pajamas. And that the same Powers decided to keep us outside for an hour while they tried to "retest" the alarm system. I was coming down with a hell of a cold, and standing outside in shorts and a T-shirt for an hour didn't really do it much good. I mean, really, aren't there better times for a fire drill than 10:30 at night? I was trying to fall asleep for Chrissake.../hijack

Anyway...MS sucks

[Chas.E]

I think I see the problem. This wasn't a Microsoft Fire Drill(tm), this was something created outside of the corporation, and thus not compatible with MS protocols. The obvious solution is for MS to buy up competing fire protection technologies and drive the Fire Department out of business.

[Yue Han]

Yeahhhh...I'd say a crowd of computer geeks yelling and cursing at firefighters is pretty asinine and moronic! Do not fuck with those people; their fuses are short enough.

Not firefighters. 'Fire marshals', people from the company who knew about the drill in advance and are supposed to monitor and direct people.

Are you guys missing the fucking point that everyone at his company was on edge already? Or the one that they'd never heard the alarm before? That this is not directed at the concept of unannounced fire drills but at the concept of blasting unidentified alarms when everyone in the building is freaking out already because they may or may not have anthrax?

Jesus Christ.

--John

[TwistofFate]

OK. People in his company were nervous. There was an Anthrax scare in his building and an unnanounced alarm that no one had even heard before.

Granted, they should be a bit better prepared, but dont rag on them for acting the way they did, considering the circumstances.

[Waverly]

Instant, total hysteria. People were screaming, running around, nobody knew what was happening. They're lucky nobody had a heart-attack. They're lucky nobody was trampled in the madness. Shit, they're lucky there was no property damage - I was just about to throw my monitor through the window and follow it out.

When people finally saw the stupid "fire marshal" facilities guys with their fire drill hats on, things got even uglier. People were yelling, cursing, red-in-the-face. I thought there was going to be a riot. A riot of angry computer geeks. ::shudder::

Am I the only person that immediately thought of George Costanza pushing children out of the way and knocking over an old lady in an effort to escape first? I can appreciate wanting to throw your monitor out the window, that is step number 3 in our company’s safety hand-out right after “drop pants”. Maybe you can take a field trip to Kindergarten and watch the children perform under the stress of a firedrill. I bet most of them don’t even wet themselves in the face of the scary noise that they have never heard before; and I’m damn sure they don’t curse out the firemen.

[CRorex]

After reading this post I felt that I should share my experiences at work. (This will be important later) I work in a virology department with contaiment labs from P-2 to p-4. To ensure our safty in this working enviroment we have a wide range of alarms. Our current favorite is the fire alarm since it has been classified as "under repair" for 4 months. This means that is goes off randomly, especially when someone is working with any electrical system in the building.
One minute you're sitting at your lab bench, or working in the P-3 on some horribly nasty chimeric SIV strain and a 20-billion decebel alarm goes off. I remember the first fire alarm I heard... 20 minutes after I finished my briefing with Enviormental Health and Safety, the upshot of it was "if the fire alarm goes off stay at your lab bench and finish your experiment". So when the alarm does go off all of the doors to the P-2 labs and tech offices open up and down the hall and heads pop out, just like Prairie Dogs.
Then there is the low O2 detector in the liquid nitrogen room that hasn't worked ever, the countless alarms for the P-4 that we are routinely told to ignore by the signs posted on the alarm panel that nobody ever removes.
Let us not mention the power outage which shut down the safety systems in the P4. Or the day the pressure system broke raising the internal pressure .5 ATM above the outer pressure so many of my weaker co-workers were trapped in their labs.

Ironically the thought of dying from an envelope stuff with Anthrax mailed to my apartment isn't all that scary.

[MsWhatsit]

Originally posted by Waverly
I can appreciate wanting to throw your monitor out the window, that is step number 3 in our company’s safety hand-out right after “drop pants”. Maybe you can take a field trip to Kindergarten and watch the children perform under the stress of a firedrill. I bet most of them don’t even wet themselves in the face of the scary noise that they have never heard before; and I’m damn sure they don’t curse out the firemen.

Waverly, I just wanted to thank you for giving me the best laugh I've had in a week. I'm contemplating making "I can appreciate wanting to throw your monitor out the window, that is step number 3 in our company's safety handout right after 'drop pants'." my new sig.

For the rest of the day, I will envision kindergarteners cursing out firemen, and I shall giggle.

[Michael Ellis]

Originally posted by Rilchiam
Yeah, why don't you get 100 tacos and take them home for the Doctor Who marathon.

Sounds like a good idea to me!

[Yue Han]

and I’m damn sure they don’t curse out the firemen.

Again, not firemen. Company 'fire marshals', guys who work there who organize fire drills. Not firemen. You can tell because he said:

the stupid "fire marshal" facilities guys with their fire drill hats on

And then I pointed out to someone else who wasn't paying attention.

The fact that you've missed this makes me think you didn't pay real close attention to anyone's posts, so are you clear on the fact that they'd recently had an anthrax scare? I'm sure if people had been mailing your company what might have been spores of a deadly disease, and then suddenly alarms started going off, you'd be completely calm and collected but why don't you cut people who weren't some fucking slack?

--John

[Venoma]

Originally posted by CRorex

Then there is the low O2 detector in the liquid nitrogen room that hasn't worked ever, the countless alarms for the P-4 that we are routinely told to ignore by the signs posted on the alarm panel that nobody ever removes.
Let us not mention the power outage which shut down the safety systems in the P4. Or the day the pressure system broke raising the internal pressure .5 ATM above the outer pressure so many of my weaker co-workers were trapped in their labs.

Ironically the thought of dying from an envelope stuff with Anthrax mailed to my apartment isn't all that scary.

Uhm P4 as in biohazard level 4 containment unit? (Excuse the laymanism. That's a word, really.)

Yeah, I would rather die of Anthrax than a filovirus, myself.

[CRorex]

Yep its biohazard safety level 4... Never did figure out why they call it the P-4.

Gotta love going to work in a place where you have no clue if the alarm lights on the panel where you enter your working enviroment indicate if you will suffer from death, severe injuries, radical pressure/temperature chances or have a normal day.

Hrrm I should take this to a new post so I can vent... not like I have work to do or anythign.

[Waverly]

Originally posted by Yue Han
The fact that you've missed this makes me think you didn't pay real close attention to anyone's posts, so are you clear on the fact that they'd recently had an anthrax scare? I'm sure if people had been mailing your company what might have been spores of a deadly disease, and then suddenly alarms started going off, you'd be completely calm and collected but why don't you cut people who weren't some fucking slack?

I assume you are addressing me, for although you don’t make a direct address, you have quoted me in your nitpicking. I’m aware that these people didn’t arrive on a red hook and ladder. Whether ‘fire-marshal’ or ‘fireman’ maybe you can explain to me how the difference results in it being OK to curse at the former because they had a fire drill. Go ahead I’ll wait.

Don’t presume to tell me what dangers are, or are not, present at my place of employment. We have surprise fire drills; we leave in an orderly fashion; we do not panic - all under the knowledge that a fire in this facility would be so dangerous that the fire department is under instructions not to enter, even to seek employers or fight the fire, but rather concentrate on clearing neighboring buildings. Quit your mewling.

[Cat Whisperer]

Your best emergency plan is to find out who is a claustrophobe in your area, and follow them. A claustrophobe always knows where all the exits are of any building; we have no time for panic, either. Our only mission is GETTING OUT OF THE BUILDING. You can come along if you like; just don't slow us down.
CRorex, I wasn't feeling too frightened about biological warfare until I read your posts. (insert somewhat wavering big grin).

[Pedro]

The OP was hilarious. A clear 8.

Originally posted by Dooku
Instant, total hysteria. People were screaming, running around, nobody knew what was happening. They're lucky nobody had a heart-attack. They're lucky nobody was trampled in the madness. Shit, they're lucky there was no property damage - I was just about to throw my monitor through the window and follow it out.

LOL that is an interesting variant to "calmly head towards the nearest exit, do not panic, do not run", including trampling people screaming histericaly.

C'mon cut the guy some slack.

[Morbo]

Uh...Rilchiam? Waverly? What's your fucking problem?

- We had not yet heard whether or not the Anthrax scare was real.

- We had *never* had a fire drill before, so we weren't sure whether what we were hearing was a fire drill or not. We did not have any idea that this was a fire drill until we got outside. These office buildings have been here less than a year, this was the first time anyone heard this noise, which sounds nothing like a fire alarm buzzer.

- The fact that our office is really close to what we consider to be another target for terrorists - the NASA research center - made all of us even more nervous that we would be targeted.

- The "fire marshall" people are our facilities guys - they are no way, shape or form actual firemen. They're guys that stand around wearing hats that say "Marshall" and tell us where to go stand.

Should they have been cursed at? Probably not, but given the circumstances, I'd say we were all a little on edge. I'm glad to hear from your expert opinion that Kindergartners would behave better under identical circumstances.

Oh, and since my last post the facilities people *did* apologize for their unfortunate timing in all of this, FWIW.

And Rilchiam, I have no idea what the hell that "Tacos and watch Doctor Who" comment was about, unless you are making the comment that all MS employees are fat nerds who watch Sci Fi all the time. I was under the impression that sweeping generalizations about other people's appearances or lifestyles wasn't what these boards are about. You don't know anything about me, so back the fuck off, asshole.

[lucie]

My sympathies, Dooku. My brother-in-law works at that building and I have had numerous conversations with my sister in the past few days about the Anthrax scare and how deeply, deeply freaked he has been. She tells me she has never seen him this shook up, and he has had some bad things in his life before.

Sounds like piss-poor timing on MS's part. they should have had at least one announced drill before they sprung it on an already jittery group of people.

And FTR, my brother-in-law is no fat sci-fi watching geek. He's an unusually intelligent, good-looking, and extremely hard-working man who probably has no idea who Dr. Who is.

[Yue Han]

Waverly, I was going to respond to your post at length but Dooku put the circumstances pretty clearly in his last post. You've made it clear you wouldn't have behaved the same way in that situation, fine. If you can't have any sympathy or at least cut him and his coworkers some slack, I really can't see how to continue this argument without descending to the "You're a jerk," "No, you are stage."

--John

[Rilchiam]

Dooku...

The worse a problem is, the more important it is to maintain order and calm.

Cursing at people who are acting in an official capacity: uncool.

If there had been a slight but real problem, like a fire in the building, running around and screaming could have made it worse, like herding people towards the fire instead of out of the building.

I'll retract the "tacos and Doctor Who" remark, but the rest stands.

[Initial Entry]

Well... at least this way people will remember what the fire alarm sounds like, right?

I remember last year in my dormitory we had quite a few drills (mostly the result of a dick of a hall director) which resulted in the inevitable -- every started ignoring them.

The fact that later in the year we had a series of actual fire alarms just made the problem worse. (Well, they weren't actual fires so much as the result of a questionable administrative decision, namely the installation of smoke alarms(as opposed to heat alarms) in the student smoking lounges -- but leaving the dorm at 2 AM, in the winter, in Minnesota only to find that out of an entire dormitory approximately 20 people have decided to leave the building at all has always met my criteria for a surrealistic experience.)

[OxyMoron]

Wait a sec. You've never had a fire drill before? How long have you been working in that building? That's kinda scary, at least to me.

Here in NYC, most commercial buildings have fire drills at least once a year. When I worked downtown, we took it pretty seriously (admittedly, this was post-1993); the fire department sent representatives to watch over us.

Sounds like you guys were pretty overdue. Better to have the chaos under these circumstances than in a "real thing."

[CRorex]

I wouldn't worry about BSL-4. A lot of BSL-4 pathogens kill you too fast to spread it. I'd be more afraid of people in BSL-3. All you have to wear are double gloves, some plastic gown and a face mask. Which means there is a lot of your body not covered by protection which you can contaminate, I could spill virus on my chair, then sit on it and contamint my ass and I wouldn't notice (ok if I spilled enough that my ass got wet I would). There is no decontamination protocol and I could carry anything I want all over the place.

______
"Added fuel to the flames of panic, locked the doors leading to reason and hid the change of underware." Mission Accomplished!

[Cat Whisperer]

You ever read "The Stand" by Stephen King, CRorex?

[Una Persson]

Heh. MY company has a written policy that you are supposed to remain at your desk when the fire alarm goes off, until an announcement is made saying whether it is real or not. Not that anyone cares, or that I would get in the least bit of trouble (I can walk out of the building at any time just to take a walk and no one would question me), but it is ludicrous to imagine people waiting patiently at their desks, coughing, choking, trying to put out the fire with their leftover coffee from breakfast...

[Waverly]

Yue Han: Oh no, please don’t respond ‘at length’. I’m not sure my fragile psyche could handle it.

Dooku: I don’t have a problem with you (unless you are responsible for the Directed Com module that keeps trying to shanghai my internet connection). I merely thought the behavior you described during the fire drill was silly ["total hysteria"], even under the circumstances. I hope you don’t take my saying so personally.