Permabanned
- Joined
- 10 Dec 2008
- Posts
- 4,080
- Location
- London
I work in an open plan office. You need to know the layout. There is a corridor down the middle. Off each corridor there is a 'row' by which there are 6 desks in a 'dead-end' about 8 metres deep (ending in a wall). To get out of your 'row' you have to walk to the 'central corridor'.
We have a whole team of people just started working that have all come over from Pakistan together. They all sit together down one of these 'dead ends', and all started work at the same time (same project).
In Pakistan there is absolutely zero requirement to have fire-drills, and in fact they never even practice them (bet you didn't know that!)! They don't have a clue, and our company didn't tell them, presuming they knew that 10am Thursday for 1 minute ignore the fire alarm going off..
Therefore when the first 1 minute 'ignore it' practice fire-drill set off on it's regular 10am Thursday slot, much to our bemusement and surprise, whats best described as a 'benny hill' scene ensued from the new guys. They were panicking, screaming, and running out of the office all in one big 'clump' of people looking like a roman battle formation or something. It was the most bizarre thing we've ever seen .. they were barging others out of the way to GET OUT OF THE BUILDING whilst screaming excitedly!!
Very bizarre, but kind of funny. 40 minutes later they returned to the office, none of them realising that this was a regular weekly thing. They literally thought a fire had happened, and been extinguished, somewhere in the building! They're all phoning their partners etc. to explain what a 'lucky escape' they'd had.
The next Thursday, at 9:40am, our ultra-evil preperation began.
Firstly, quietly, a desk was gently shifted over the end of their 'row' as they were busy working. They barely noticed, staring into their monitors - they didn't register at all that their previous week's fire-route was effectively blocked. Then, 2 lazer printers and a whole pile of cartridges was placed on the shifted desk. Finally, various desktop fans were placed at other 'easy escape' routes.
At 10am, predictably for us but not for them, the fire-alarm went off.
What happened next can best be described as 'mental carnage like you've never seen'. They were clambouring over their desks, shouting, madly clawing at the moved desk like some kind of retarded zombies, fans flying everywhere, printer cartridges all over the floor, making this kind of panicking sounds and barging each other around (and literally, literally running around in circles), not noticing that the rest of us were laughing.
One guy started crawling under the desks (and managed), one guy tried a kind of running jump at the shifted desk which went horribly, horribly wrong.
After a few minutes they all got out - and after we'd done the fire drill we returned the desk to it's previous position.
Next, if they hadn't figured it out, we were planning (not seriously after the warning) )on somehow dropping oil on the tiled floor at 9:58am, or maybe a few hundred marbles! Also the MPEG of 'Benny Hill' had already been downloaded and was ready to rock! Watch as further hilarity ensues on our Thursday morning 'running mad panicky man' challenge.
Does this make us all the most nasty people alive? Dunno - but Thursday mornings at 10am weren't boring ..
This is all fiction and none of it happened at all, and we especially didn't get a written warning from the boss, and we didn't have our wages docked for the 40 minutes it took to clear up the mess. Think of it as a work of fiction.
We have a whole team of people just started working that have all come over from Pakistan together. They all sit together down one of these 'dead ends', and all started work at the same time (same project).
In Pakistan there is absolutely zero requirement to have fire-drills, and in fact they never even practice them (bet you didn't know that!)! They don't have a clue, and our company didn't tell them, presuming they knew that 10am Thursday for 1 minute ignore the fire alarm going off..
Therefore when the first 1 minute 'ignore it' practice fire-drill set off on it's regular 10am Thursday slot, much to our bemusement and surprise, whats best described as a 'benny hill' scene ensued from the new guys. They were panicking, screaming, and running out of the office all in one big 'clump' of people looking like a roman battle formation or something. It was the most bizarre thing we've ever seen .. they were barging others out of the way to GET OUT OF THE BUILDING whilst screaming excitedly!!
Very bizarre, but kind of funny. 40 minutes later they returned to the office, none of them realising that this was a regular weekly thing. They literally thought a fire had happened, and been extinguished, somewhere in the building! They're all phoning their partners etc. to explain what a 'lucky escape' they'd had.
The next Thursday, at 9:40am, our ultra-evil preperation began.
Firstly, quietly, a desk was gently shifted over the end of their 'row' as they were busy working. They barely noticed, staring into their monitors - they didn't register at all that their previous week's fire-route was effectively blocked. Then, 2 lazer printers and a whole pile of cartridges was placed on the shifted desk. Finally, various desktop fans were placed at other 'easy escape' routes.
At 10am, predictably for us but not for them, the fire-alarm went off.
What happened next can best be described as 'mental carnage like you've never seen'. They were clambouring over their desks, shouting, madly clawing at the moved desk like some kind of retarded zombies, fans flying everywhere, printer cartridges all over the floor, making this kind of panicking sounds and barging each other around (and literally, literally running around in circles), not noticing that the rest of us were laughing.
One guy started crawling under the desks (and managed), one guy tried a kind of running jump at the shifted desk which went horribly, horribly wrong.
After a few minutes they all got out - and after we'd done the fire drill we returned the desk to it's previous position.
Next, if they hadn't figured it out, we were planning (not seriously after the warning) )on somehow dropping oil on the tiled floor at 9:58am, or maybe a few hundred marbles! Also the MPEG of 'Benny Hill' had already been downloaded and was ready to rock! Watch as further hilarity ensues on our Thursday morning 'running mad panicky man' challenge.
Does this make us all the most nasty people alive? Dunno - but Thursday mornings at 10am weren't boring ..
This is all fiction and none of it happened at all, and we especially didn't get a written warning from the boss, and we didn't have our wages docked for the 40 minutes it took to clear up the mess. Think of it as a work of fiction.
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