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Fire alarm story
Nov. 24th, 2012 12:58 pmLast Friday we had a fire drill in the office. This reminded me of a craziest fire drill I experienced ever.
12 years ago, I was Nortel's contractor and spent some time in Nortel's office in a distant south-western suburb of Paris. The office was large, I think several thousand ppl were working there. Once I came to the office on Thursday, and just before lunch I've heard a fire alarm. It was a real one - something went on fire on a top floor, but nothing really serious. Sirens went off, firefighters arrived in just 3 minutes to see that there was no fire any more, just some smoke. Firefighters were not happy however: full evacuation from the building took almost 10 minutes.
So on Friday everyone received an e-mail from management, telling that the evacuation was absolutely unorganized, and firefighters insisted that we do weekly fire drills until evacuation time gets down to 3 minutes.
Next day I went to the office to do something (I don't remember what but that was the only time I ever went to the office on Saturday). There were nobody in the building of course, just two guys at security post. They were very, very happy to see me. That seemed suspicious, but 10 minutes later I found out the reason.
I went to my desk, and in 10 minutes heard a fire alarm. As instructed, I proceeded to emergency exit. At the exit, there was one of security guys with a chronometer, telling me: well done, full building evacuation is complete in less than 1 minute: we set a new record!
There were no more fire drills in coming weeks... I guess the firefighters were sent a protocol saying that full building evacuation was done in less than 3 minutes.
12 years ago, I was Nortel's contractor and spent some time in Nortel's office in a distant south-western suburb of Paris. The office was large, I think several thousand ppl were working there. Once I came to the office on Thursday, and just before lunch I've heard a fire alarm. It was a real one - something went on fire on a top floor, but nothing really serious. Sirens went off, firefighters arrived in just 3 minutes to see that there was no fire any more, just some smoke. Firefighters were not happy however: full evacuation from the building took almost 10 minutes.
So on Friday everyone received an e-mail from management, telling that the evacuation was absolutely unorganized, and firefighters insisted that we do weekly fire drills until evacuation time gets down to 3 minutes.
Next day I went to the office to do something (I don't remember what but that was the only time I ever went to the office on Saturday). There were nobody in the building of course, just two guys at security post. They were very, very happy to see me. That seemed suspicious, but 10 minutes later I found out the reason.
I went to my desk, and in 10 minutes heard a fire alarm. As instructed, I proceeded to emergency exit. At the exit, there was one of security guys with a chronometer, telling me: well done, full building evacuation is complete in less than 1 minute: we set a new record!
There were no more fire drills in coming weeks... I guess the firefighters were sent a protocol saying that full building evacuation was done in less than 3 minutes.
