5 ms·

In my experience, fire drills make people too calm in the event of a fire. Five years ago, fire alarms rang throughout the office building I was working in. Pe

In my experience, fire drills make people too calm in the event of a fire. Five years ago, fire alarms rang throughout the office building I was working in. People were nonchalant. Most people left eventually, although some people went back in to pick up some books to read or grab some work to do. Meanwhile, and to my surprise, there was actually a fire. The fire department showed up, and they were pissed that people weren't taking the alarm seriously.

dalke 12y ago
That means your fire drills aren't being run correctly. Rather, how come this poor behavior wasn't noticed during earlier drills? Did the staff fire warden not have the management support to be able to affect staff behavior?
- impendia 12y ago
  We'd never had a fire drill in this building, but like all Americans we'd been through dozens of fire drills before, mostly in school. I don't really understand your second question. Our office did not employ or appoint a fire warden. In any case, I was unaware of anyone outside the fire department who was upset.
  - dalke 12y ago
    You started with "In my experience, fire drills make people too calm in the event of a fire." I thought that meant that your building had fire drills, and those previous drills made them too calm. A real fire drill is more than setting off alarms to see if they work. There are also local fire wardens, which are staff whose job it is to see that people hear the alerts and evacuate, and who make sure that people don't try to re-enter the building. I've done consulting work for chemical manufacturing companies. A couple required that I go through (pretty basic) training just to work on site. Another had a fire alarm go off at about 6pm, when I and others were still there. Almost evacuated that building (there was some doofus who was on a phone call and refused to leave.) I was only there for consulting work, and don't know what happened to that person. But if management believes that fire drills, and responding correctly to actual fire alarms, are necessary, then they will reprimand those who don't participate. But what you experienced was different than I thought. There were no fire drills, people were mostly using their experiences from school/college, and management didn't care. That's not the same as fire drills making people complacent. It could be that the lack of fire drills making people complacent. In any case, I'm not suggesting your building needs regular fire drills. Buildings are much safer now they they used to be, and most places don't have fire drills because the cost of running them is worse than the benefits of not. (Chemical companies which store lots of flammable materials on-site, and schools or hospital care facilities with a lot of people who need assistance to evaluate, are exceptions.)

dalke 12y ago

That means your fire drills aren't being run correctly. Rather, how come this poor behavior wasn't noticed during earlier drills? Did the staff fire warden not have the management support to be able to affect staff behavior?

impendia 12y ago
We'd never had a fire drill in this building, but like all Americans we'd been through dozens of fire drills before, mostly in school. I don't really understand your second question. Our office did not employ or appoint a fire warden. In any case, I was unaware of anyone outside the fire department who was upset.
- dalke 12y ago
  You started with "In my experience, fire drills make people too calm in the event of a fire." I thought that meant that your building had fire drills, and those previous drills made them too calm. A real fire drill is more than setting off alarms to see if they work. There are also local fire wardens, which are staff whose job it is to see that people hear the alerts and evacuate, and who make sure that people don't try to re-enter the building. I've done consulting work for chemical manufacturing companies. A couple required that I go through (pretty basic) training just to work on site. Another had a fire alarm go off at about 6pm, when I and others were still there. Almost evacuated that building (there was some doofus who was on a phone call and refused to leave.) I was only there for consulting work, and don't know what happened to that person. But if management believes that fire drills, and responding correctly to actual fire alarms, are necessary, then they will reprimand those who don't participate. But what you experienced was different than I thought. There were no fire drills, people were mostly using their experiences from school/college, and management didn't care. That's not the same as fire drills making people complacent. It could be that the lack of fire drills making people complacent. In any case, I'm not suggesting your building needs regular fire drills. Buildings are much safer now they they used to be, and most places don't have fire drills because the cost of running them is worse than the benefits of not. (Chemical companies which store lots of flammable materials on-site, and schools or hospital care facilities with a lot of people who need assistance to evaluate, are exceptions.)