Fire Alarm

Today at work we had a fire alarm of sorts. The last several months we have experienced brown outs in the afternoon about one day a month. he lights go out, but we have a generator so things are pretty much fine. This time a nerves man came over the public address saying that we lost power and we had to evacuate the building. At first many of us thought "Forget it, We have a generator." Then some fire trucks pulled up out front.

Every time I've ever been in the situation where I have to go down the stairs with a tone of other people in a 'fire' kind of situation, it has been at snail's pace. It was no different this time. A lady got in the stair well at floor three with a broken foot. She hobbled as fast as a sixty year old chubby woman with a club foot can. I thought to myself "If there were smoke choking me in the crypt of an escape rout, would I climb over her and every one else in front of me?" I entertain these thoughts. I really hope I would not be that kind of a prick in that situation.

The firefighters met us rounding the last turn to fresh air and freedom. They, headed up to three and the bad smell of burned electronics. We had heard from someone to head for a work out place around the corner as a meeting spot, but 90% of our company was standing just outside the front door. The Big Boss said call back at 16:00 to find out what was going on. I ran around taking a bunch of pictures for no reason. Well, for something to do.

Adam, Laurie, Eliot and I headed for the smoothly place. I had a banana drink of some kind. Jake stopped by to encourage us to head to Fox and Hound. We declined. There was no column of smoke or rising mushroom cloud so we headed back to the scene.

We ran in to the big boss talking to the building manager. I'm leaving the conversation between them to the imagination. I'll just say, I wish I had a video of it. We were the only people in the building going back to work as far as I could tell. A bunch of people filtered back in as the hours spin ever slowly to quitting time. The guards turned people away at the front door, but we worked in no AC. People made up reasons to work in the lab. It has it's own AC.

I heard that the guard went over to the restaurant across the street to tell the packed back porch area that the building was closed. "Go home." he said. Someone at the front door was turned away. People from my company were hand-waved in. It is a bit depressing. No biggy.

Got home and pulled weeds.