Fire Drills - D or D?

Run Tom! Don't stop to pick up your coat! Or scarf or hat or gloves!

Phew the crisis is over and we were all saved.

Don't worry Tom. *I* care about your fire drill, even if nobody else does.

In too much of a rush to pick up hat and coat. Not enough of a rush to not post to ILX.

As fire warder I keep warm by shouting at people to move away from the building.

What hat and coat?

They're great, especially if you get to smash the glass bar in the emergency fire door. We've had several in the last few weeks and I so wanted to be the first person to get to the emergency exits, but then we had another while we were in the basement studio so we were, but are teacher said there was no hurry and led us out through the front door, and I bet someone else got to smash it. Bah!

The fire drill in my building is an ultra loud pair of clashing pitches. It must be one of the worst sounds I've ever heard. I'm surprised it doesn't make people convulse or explode. Everytime it comes on my roomates and I leap up, scream, and lunge for our earplugs.

Don't even think about using that lift!

The Fire Officers at my old work got teased relentlessly because they were made to wear flurorescent yellow jackets whilst fulfilling their role. People began to wonder whether firefighters' helmets would become standard issue for them as well. So it meant that there at least, the rule about not stopping to pick up yr coat was reversed...if you were a fire officer! And of course they would stash their dayglo attire away in cupboards out of embarrassment , rather than hang it for all to see on the coat-hook.

At my current work, they decided to time how long it took us to vacate the building and after we were all safely back indoors again they told us that we had taken 7 minutes. This JUST WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH - we should have taken just five. I pointed out that we would've made the five minute deadline with time to spare if the bottom of the stairwell hadn't been clogged up wuth junk, including old bits of furniture and a lot of doors (who knows where from) off their hinges, lying on their sides. A few days later, some shame faced Facilities Management bod took all this rubbish away.

I used to work in a huge government office building, and we had bomb drills. Because of the size of the place it took ages to evacuate/unevacuate, and it was good cover for a skive. Every time the alarm went off I considered myself entitled to two hours in the pub.

A friend of mine's mother used to work as a school secretary in the 80s and she used to regularly get phoned up and a childish voice would tell her that there was a bomb in the school. She would respond, "That's nice, dear" and hang up. I wonder if she would respond in such a blasé manner today?

I went for a job interview where they had pics of the Fire Officer and First aider in the foyer. The First Aider was pictured against a green background and the Fire Officer against you-guessed-it, red. It was somewhat unfortunate that the fire officer was wearing a red shirt and a narrow black tie, so it looked as if it was a picture of his head on a stick.