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Chapter 8 – Fire Alarms and AED

  I had just hung up the phone when a blaring alarm started to sound. I knew instantly we were having a fire drill. The pings of sound made my head throb and I didn’t need any further motivation to leave the building. Being one of our department’s Fire Wardens, Star Wars had been acting more fidgety than normal today. He took the assignment very seriously and even had the blazing red floor warden hat on his cubicle wall to prove it.

  As soon as the alarm sounded he leaped out of his seat and started walking quickly around the office shouting over the din. “Lock it down, come on let’s go, lets go people. Lock it down and move outside.”

  I locked my computer and made sure to grab my iPod. After all, what if it wasn’t a drill? I wasn’t the only one with these worries and saw people all over the office grabbing personal belongings as they left. When I say grabbing stuff that’s what I mean. It didn’t take them any longer to leave than it would have to say, go to lunch. This nonchalant attitude was driving Star Wars over the edge. He was shewing people out of the room as fast as he could. All that was fine, but he also had a running commentary going of how dumb it was to take personal belongings as they may slow you down. It didn’t escape any of us that he was wearing the signature fanny pack, but then again he could secure that thing in one fluid moment, and supposedly there were medical supplies inside.

  “Oh my goodness he drives me bonkers,” Adrian said as we walked out of our department and into the busy hall. I reached down and gripped her arm as both of us were jostled out of the building. As we exited towards the condo complex across the lot, we all gathered together under some trees and I noticed one lady from our office, who had no common sense, light up a cigarette. We called her Smoke Stack because she sounded like she spent most of her life living in a burring Marlboro factory and she smelled like it too. Even the other smokers in the department commented on it and let’s face it—that took talent.

  It wasn’t cold this morning so everyone was in high sprits when Star Wars exited the building after his inspection to make sure none of us were burned alive. He was holding a clipboard heavy laden with papers. It almost seemed to accent the powder blue fanny pack and fire engine red floor warden hat.

  Fiasco and Junior started clapping and cheering, “We’re saved! You go, Harold!”

  Harold? It took me a second to remember that Harold was Star Wars’ real name, the one his parents gave him.

  “Henry is fine and you’re welcome,” Star Wars said.

  “Now listen up, we need to take roll and I want this done before the Fire Department gets here.”

  “Yes, Harold lead us!” Junior said emphatically. I had to look down so I didn’t laugh.

  “I will.”

  Star Wars started down a list of the people in our department and no one could say that he wasn’t thorough. In fact I could hear people from other departments talking about it and started to hear the faint term Fire Nazi making its way around. Most of us were here. There were only a few who took the day off and even though their team lead and co-workers were there to confirm that fact, Star Wars still called them on his cell and woke several of them up.

  “Is Mary there? Hi, this is Henry from work. Did you take the day off today? Well, we had a fire drill and…yes, every one said you were off but I… ah, yes I do know what time it is. I’m up at five every day. It breeds discipline. After all, that’s what the Jedi Brass is looking fo—…you don’t care about the Jedi? Ok well, I think it’s time you got up. It’s 7 a.m. No I’m not say—…I don’t think that—hello…hello?”

  He clapped the phone shut and shook his head. I leaned close to Yoda “Hey, does he have all of our numbers?”

  “Yep, we can all get a list. It’s for when the office closes for snow or anything like that. They have a phone tree set up and I think Star Wars has us all on speed dial.”

  “I don’t know if I should be creeped out or touched.”

  “Creeped out,” Adrian said coolly.

  It didn’t take long for us to be cleared and head back in the building. Apparently, this was a planned drill, which explains why Star Wars was fidgety all morning.

  As we entered the building, Star Wars checked to make sure that the people from other departments had some sort of proof that they were Riders employees. It was getting bad. People wanted in and it took them a while to produce proof sometimes. Yoda, Adrian, and I went to another door and walked in without inspection. Once inside, I went back to my desk to log the call I was on right before the drill. It took me awhile to remember what all was said, and in the end I just made it up. I noticed that Star Wars wasn’t at his desk and when I IM’d Yoda to find out why, he told me that he was in with Larry. I opened a three way IM with Adrian and Yoda.

  Bmorrison “why do you think Star Wars is in there?”

  Yoda “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  Horsechick “whatever, you want to know just as much as us.”

  Yoda “fine, maybe he’s getting in trouble for calling Mary.”

  Bmorrison “…or for checking everyone who enters the building?”

  Horsechick “maybe. what do you think the Jedi will do if he gets written up?”

  Bmorrison “lol probably make him a padawan again.”

  Horsechick “lol”

  Yoda “you two need a life. I’m signing off.”

  It didn’t take too long to find out what was going on. Star Wars was back at his desk in no time and an email popped up telling me that Harold was understaffed and that he needed help to ensure our safety. I was informed that there were two main safety oriented groups in our building. One was the floor wardens and the other was the AED team. The floor wardens just made sure that people exited the building in an emergency. The AED responders, as they were called, were put through first aid training. They also learned how to use Automatic External Defibrillators placed around the building. To top it all off, a red plastic heart with AED in white letters hung above their desk. Somehow, I was now on both teams along with Fiasco. There was training for both positions scheduled next week. The AED training took a half-day, the Fire Warden an hour. All of the AED responders and the Fire Wardens were to attend both trainings.

  I walked by Fiasco’s desk. “What do you think man?”

  He looked over at me and there was a gleam in his eyes that spelled trouble. “Man this is going to be so much fun. We get to learn how to shock the hell out of people and they can’t get mad at you for it. Plus, we get to yell at people during fire drills.”

  I chuckled. “And what if there is a real fire?”

  “Well then I hope your ace can run, man, because I know I sure as hell am going to.”

  My voice took on a dramatic tone. “So you’re not going to stay and pull burning people from the bathroom?”

  “Hell no, I’m not. I’m going to run out with my hat on telling people to get out da way, Fire Warden coming through. You can stay and burn if you want.”

  “No I think I’m with you—push and shove is the fastest way.”

  “You better believe it. This thing is dumb anyhow. We’re on the first floor and there are windows along one whole side of our office. If the door is on fire just break a window or something. It’s simple: if you see flames go the other way. How hard is that?”

  “I agree, and there’s like three of us to a room. How many does it take?”

  “I don’t know, man, but we’re going to have some fun.”

  “How long do you think it will take before we get kicked off the committee?”

  “I don’t know—a week, maybe longer. I think it will depend on how long it takes for another drill.”

  I was walking back to my desk and saw Manager-lady walking up to me.

  “Hey there, first responder,” she said sarcastically.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She looked confused. “I thought you were on the AED team?”

  “Well kind of”

  “What do
you mean kind of?”

  “I’m not learning how to use the shocker things and I’m not getting a plastic heart.”

  “Well what are you doing then?”

  “That’s easy. The company put in all of these procedures and measures to bring people back to life so to speak. But what if you have a “do not resuscitate” in effect? What then?”

  She looked thoughtful. “I don’t know.”

  “See that’s what happens. If you don’t want to be shocked back to life, you just send me an email and then when you go down, I don’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Shut up.”

  “For real. Look, they’re going to give me a stick so I can ward off all of the other AED people and instead of the red heart they’ll put a grim reaper above my desk. So, if you’re dying and you don’t want anyone to stop you from dying, then you can crawl to me knowing I’ll defend your right to kick the bucket.”

  She hit my arm and I heard Adrian laughing at her desk. “You’re sick, Bill.”

  Star Wars was at our sides in a heart beat looking sternly at me. “Bill, this is a very big deal. People’s lives are on the line.”

  “It’s ok man, your fine.”

  He huffed and walked away from me. As the day went on, I received more and more emails from people notifying me that if it was Star Wars who was first to respond to let them die before allowing him to perform mouth-to-mouth on them.

  The AED training was actually kind of cool. Both Fiasco and I learned a ton of stuff and now we were CPR certified. Fire training, however, didn’t go as well. It was mostly watching videos of dumb people staying in burning buildings. I mean really dumb people.

  The lady who was teaching us was about average height with short, curly black hair that was starting to fade. She was nice and I could tell that she wasn’t all that into her job, but she was probably close to retirement and this was an easy path to take. The main video we watched was from a convenience store that lit up. People were actually coming inside to watch the fire.

  I wouldn’t say there was nothing good that came out of the meeting. I learned a lot. I learned that a lady in the underwriting department was stuck in a burning house once and that she barely escaped by crawling out the back door. When I heard this story, I was impressed and wanted details, as did everyone else. It turned out that she just burnt some popcorn in the microwave and that it smoked a lot. The fire lady tried to use it as an example of the dangers of not working a microwave correctly but it was completely unsuccessful. There weren’t any burning buildings so I had lost interest.

  By the time I was back at my desk, there was already a plastic heart above it and my little red hat was waiting for the next fire drill.