They do basically the same thing where I work.
If they sent out “Evacuation Procedures” on the first of every month, then that would be one thing. Instead, it’s always somewhere between a few hours and a week before the fire drill.
So, sure, it’s nice to have the procedures fresh in your head before the drill… But that’s not a realistic simulation of what would happen if an actual fire occurred.
I had a shitty question about this, so I did some Googling… while the groups you’d expect do support fire drills, there are concerns about their efficacy.
I know after 9/11 drills were questioned. Some people in the towers were told by their fire wardens to stay put and wait for instructions. Those people wound up dead, while the people who thought, “screw that, I’m going to the ground floor and the boss can yell at me later” had a much better chance of survival.
Sure people panicking and no roll call being taken is bad, but maybe the whole process needs to be re-examined.
The “drill before the drill” thing is a great example. At my work we’ve had to do makeup drills because we were too slow getting out of the building.
Good clean fun:
We only get warning when it’s the monthly testing. Actual drills, our fire wardens get warned, but we don’t.
Which is why I always grab my jacket, keys, wallet and cell phone before I head out.
I figure if I can’t actually see a fire (or other issue) I have time to react calmly and ensure that if it is real, I have the tools that I can go home.
@gadgetgirl IIRC, the best survival ties between those who save themselves (as you described) and those who are “overdrilled” to the point where they don’t need to listen to instructions, because it’s now at the point of muscle memory.
The problem is that most people get drilled at a level where it’s frequent enough to be annoying, and not enough to be effective.
At my work, we just go ahead and have the occasional random electrical fire.
When I worked out of one of the manufacturing plants there were two locked doors between us and the rest of the front office.
Fire alarm goes off. The three of assume it’s another drill and just keep quiet. Alarm keeps going. I finally peek my head out the back door that opens out into manufacturing.
Smoke. Everywhere.
So I grab the other guys and go out to the parking lot with everyone else.
(The fire ended up being fairly contained, just what caught on fire produced copious smoke)
That 2011 east coast earthquake was fun. At work, minding my own business, when a couple of file cabinets are dropped onto the floor above me – at least, that’s what it sounded like. Then it starts shaking, then really shaking. So we all head out for a good two hour stretch in the sun.
See? All factories should be like this. Listening to the safety people losing their shit to try to explain in conference call that there is very dysfunctional shit going on with… ^h I’ve noticed that it’s very nice to finally work somewhere that people do a good job of at least wanting to do their job rather than competing to fake the best appearance of a good job badly concluded.
PS. Locked doors? Holy shit. Like the only white flunkies they hired were kids that didn’t know any better? Shit. That takes me back. They padlocked the back door of the high school, as some kind of experiment. And then they stopped. Somewhere in there they stopped doing Slave Day too. That was before drive time Rush Limbaughrfer though.
I’ve apparently sleep-walked during an earthquake caused by a nearby volcanic eruption before. I still feel a little put out that I missed it when others who were there tell me about it.
I’ve been riding on pickup trucks every last time there’s been an earthquake in Michigan for the entire 23 years I’ve lived here. How dafuq does that even work?
…you might be a redneck!
(Sorry, I had to. It was just sitting there taunting me.)
I don’t own one. My daily driver is a stupid Prius. 
It’s been dumb luck, usually when I’m working, and the propensity for earthquakes to only hit Michigan in the middle of the day.
This is an anonymous Twitter account with nothing but photos of beautiful places in the state of Illinois. Like, redwood trees, the Sydney Opera House, etc. Stupidly funny.
Followed.
all hail Gum Shai-Hulud!
(side thought: Gum-Jabbar, anyone?)
Then he heard the graham-cracker crumbs rumbling. Every Bear knew the sound, could distinguish it immediately from the noises of worms or other dessert life. Somewhere beneath him, the pre-gummy mass had accumulated enough from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of gummy was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous “blow” with an icing-sugar whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the crumbs for whatever lay on the surface.
Is that Stephen King or Betty Crocker?
