Signs of the Times

That damn alert system that’s on the wall behind my desk went off again yesterday. Actually this time I wasn’t at my desk when it happened. I often like to spend my lunch hour outside running, so when I’m done the company has a bathroom with showers. Well I was just about to step in the shower when the alert started sounding.

Let me tell you a little about this alert system. It was installed last year and replaced the original fire alarm system, which was just a system alarm bells. It took the electrical contractor that was hired to do about a year to install.

I work in a large building that is a quarter mile long, its only two stories and only about half of actually has a second floor. Downstairs is the factory and inventory operations and upstairs us office and computer types work.

Anyway, the electrical contractor had a fairly large crew of guys working on running all the wires and installing the little white speakers complete with strobe light. I was one of the lucky employee’s that has one installed right over my head.

The damn things have a painful piercing sound they force at you as they announce their activation. This new system has the ability to broadcast a voice messages while the strobe light flashes. The point I am trying to make is the company spent big bucks to get this installed while preaching to the ‘associates’ (ever notice no one is an employee anymore these days?) how we need to conscious of cutting costs. I guess the new alert system was really important to helping the bottom line. Who knows, maybe homeland security forced them to install it.

Last summer we actually did have to evacuate the building and gather out in the parking lot under the beating sun in 100 degree temperatures. The sheriff and fire department had shown up and eventually we were all lead across the street like sheep to someone else’s parking lot.

Turns out someone phoned in a bomb threat. You can bet it wasn’t a terrorist though, it was a disgruntled former employee, excuse me, ‘associate’. Actually, I think when they do something bad like that you get to call them an employee.

Well the authorities must had all of a 30 or 40 minutes to search this huge building for a bomb, they never could find anything so they let us go back inside. I don’t think anyone really believed there was bomb in there.

So back to where I started with this thing, the alert goes off just as I’m getting ready to step in the shower. It announced that only emergency coordinators needed to report and everyone else was to remain at their stations until they heard the all clear signal.

That was yesterday, and we are still waiting to hear the all clear signal. Of course everyone went home last night and came back this morning. But I think the whole thing is pretty much a sign of the times . We’re always supposed to be on alert and they are never going to give us the all clear signal. At least I can’t imagine them ever doing that, can you?