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citysparrowIs your workplace constantly catching on fire? Mine is. In the five months I have been working at my current job, I have lost count of how many times a "Code Red" has occurred. At least once a week, I'd say. (I hope I am not giving away trade secrets by revealing what the "Code" means, but I think we have all watched enough doctor shows to know the lingo.)
In most places, even a suspicion of a fire in the building would send everyone out into the parking lot. But it's not so easy to evacuate a hospital, so we mostly just stay put. When there is a Code Red, instead of a loud wailing siren designed to make you leave the building, we just get an intermittent beeping sound designed to be ignored. In theory, a faster beeping sound means you are supposed to evacuate. That has happened once since I have been working here. We considered evacuating but decided against it. Just as well, really, because it turned out the fire was in the emergency exit stairwell.
Today was a particularly rough day. First there was a Code Red in the basement of my building. While that was still going on, there was an announcement about smoke in the elevator shaft in the building next door. Then they announced, "The Code Red is exterior," whatever that means. (It wasn't in the basement after all? It spread to the outside of the building? Someone threw the thing that was on fire out the window?)
The codes were "cleared," as they say, in about 20 minutes, as they usually are. But a little while later we got an email from the guys in the computer room. "The smell of smoke has permeated all floors," it said. "This is not related to the flood in the data centre."
Fires, floods - what's next?
In most places, even a suspicion of a fire in the building would send everyone out into the parking lot. But it's not so easy to evacuate a hospital, so we mostly just stay put. When there is a Code Red, instead of a loud wailing siren designed to make you leave the building, we just get an intermittent beeping sound designed to be ignored. In theory, a faster beeping sound means you are supposed to evacuate. That has happened once since I have been working here. We considered evacuating but decided against it. Just as well, really, because it turned out the fire was in the emergency exit stairwell.
Today was a particularly rough day. First there was a Code Red in the basement of my building. While that was still going on, there was an announcement about smoke in the elevator shaft in the building next door. Then they announced, "The Code Red is exterior," whatever that means. (It wasn't in the basement after all? It spread to the outside of the building? Someone threw the thing that was on fire out the window?)
The codes were "cleared," as they say, in about 20 minutes, as they usually are. But a little while later we got an email from the guys in the computer room. "The smell of smoke has permeated all floors," it said. "This is not related to the flood in the data centre."
Fires, floods - what's next?