Poll of the Day > What do you do at work when the fire alarm is going off? Not a drill.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ones that are not a drill.

Keep working while flashing lights and loud beeps go off for half an hour while a voice saying a fire is being investigated?

Keep working because the fire is in another part of the office and not where youre sitting?

Leave the building and stop working?

Put a towel over the blinking light and headphones on to not lose productivity and keep working?

Leave and stop working

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Stop working and report to an assembly site.

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I grab my sweater/jacket and phone and leave

Why would I keep working?

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Check the toaster.

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Wait, is it really normal to leave and stop working and leave the when theres a fire alarm thats not a drill? That sounds awesome.

A big portion of my job is safety and we always take the keep working options >_<

Yes. We'd probably be reprimanded for not evacuating.

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It actually happened to me last week. The fire alarm went off and it was not a drill. Luckily there wasnt actually a fire but some malfunction must have set the alarm. So everyone evacuated to the parking lot and we stood out there for a couple of minutes until the fire truck arrived to investigate.

It was a pretty similar experience to that episode of the office now that I think about it.

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Check that everyone is out, turn off everything electrical, close all doors, then leave.

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blu posted...

Wait, is it really normal to leave and stop working and leave the when theres a fire alarm thats not a drill?

Why on earth would anything other than "stop working immediately and evacuate" not be the correct answer?

OSHA requires there to be a fire evacuation plan in place, and I'm reasonably certain the employer could get in trouble if OSHA found out they were telling employees to ignore alarms, whether the alarm is a drill or not.

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Keep working.
Even if it's a scheduled drill I keep working.
In the event of an actual emergency, I'm the last person out of the building and am the guy that shuts off the power once it's confirmed everyone is out.

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Take the batteries out of the alarm

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Think "Ah, thank goodness, I was about to snap" and gladly proceed outside to avoid my objective.

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First there would be a moment of confusion because I never knew the garage I work in has a fire alarm.

Then I would go for a fire extinguisher and hopefully put the fire out before it gets out of hand.

Failing that I get in a car and get as much distance as I can because there's going to be explosions. There are three large tanks of gasoline in there and ton of other combustible stuff.

Then, after the place explodes, I call the local police or fire dept.

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Honestly, id assume a customer went out the wrong door again.

Everywhere I've ever worked that had fire alarm/tornado/whatever drills evacuation was mandatory. They would send people around to check and make sure everyone was out of the building.

The only time I was ever allowed to get out of one of those drills was when I worked on the 7th floor of an office building and I had a busted ankle and there was no way I could make it down 7 flights of stairs for a stupid tornado drill. So they told me to take shelter in the men's room. (I brought my chair with me and just sat around in there reading my Kindle for like a half hour.)

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Evacuate, but my manager would probably tell me that I was off the clock at the time, so I'd have to stay at work a bit longer.

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Dynalo posted...

OSHA requires there to be a fire evacuation plan in place

And because of this, you should already have been briefed on the protocol for dealing with an alarm. If you weren't, that's a major failure on your employer's behalf.

Dynalo posted...

Why on earth would anything other than "stop working immediately and evacuate" not be the correct answer?

In larger buildings, it's not uncommon for evacuation orders to only apply to certain parts of the building, whether because other parts aren't likely to be affected or because it's necessary to get higher-risk areas out first to ensure an orderly evacuation. In places where continuity of work is extremely important, like a hospital (which I believe is where Blu works), unnecessarily evacuating can have disastrous consequences, so they have protocols in place to reflect that.

In my experience, such places tend to have multiple alarms and/or a speaker system used to advise people in each area on what to do. A general alarm will sound in every area to advise everyone that there's an emergency afoot, at which point protocol usually dictates that you prepare to evacuate (i.e. secure sensitive materials so the evacuation doesn't compromise them, put on a coat and whatnot if appropriate, etc.), but not actually go anywhere until a specific evacuation signal or instruction is given.

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leave and probably take my car to a safe location since staff parking is right up against the building

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Grab some marshmellows of course.

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I make sure the stove is turned off, as well as the fryer, and that nothing is in danger of falling or breaking. I do this in the time it takes for people to file out of the store, so I can proceed to accompany them to the nearest exit without worry.

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