XP: Life Is Short, Eat Dessert First!
Ginny
It was a "getting-back-to-normal" day at work the other day. We're in
an area where there are a number of small office buildings (not
high-rises, but high enough to make waiting for elevators a frequent
chore).
At 9:30 I happened to be on the second floor, getting ready to run a
small meeting that had been postponed a lot in the previous few days -
just a lower-level thing with people sitting around giving feedback.
The emergency strobe lights started flashing, and a man's voice
announced:
"Emergency. Emergency. There is an emergency situation. Please
evacuate the building immediately. This is not a drill. Use the
emergency exits and stairwells to evacuate the building immediately."
(Yes, I remember thinking at the time 'This is not a daffodil.')
So off we went. Amazed, I saw that everyone else was smiling
sheepishly and standing around looking like "Duh, what do we do now?"
I just kept chanting "Stairwells. Get to the stairwells." in a calm
voice.
I noticed a delivery guy trying to log in packages and causing a
slight jam-up just next to the stairwell door. Still trying to do his
job, he was actually holding up people coming from our direction, and
AHEM, the freight elevator was on the other side. Peevish aside: I
hate when delivery folks use the passenger elevators to do
floor-to-floor delivery stops. They claim it's faster because there's
only one freight elevator, and the passenger cars are closer to the
doors of their customers. Still, it's annoying. Anyway:
Once in the stairwell, the atmosphere was still calm, but then we were
only one floor up. As if by instinct, everyone headed to the far side
of the parking lot away from the buildings, rather than bunching up by
the doors.
After a period of wandering around, annoyed that my car keys and cell
phone were sitting safely at my desk on the 11th floor, we were told
that we'd be out in the parking lot for at least 90 minutes or more
while the building was checked. We could all take off until at least
11am, but had to be back in case the building was cleared by then. So
we wandered around looking for restaurants that were open at that
hour. I had $3 in my pocket, but somebody loaned me another 5 bucks.
Where to go? Where to be?
Suddenly, it hit me. Life is short, eat dessert first. I wanted mint
chocolate chip ice cream, and I wanted it at 10:00am. Fortunately, the
place I most wanted to go at that moment was open. Some others felt
the same way, so off we went for ice cream. There were two other women
- both parents - a gay guy, and me. The women immediately started
blabbering about their kids. I had a moment of glazeover, then picked
up and moved next to John and said "So tell me about this cruise
you're going on next week." The women looked at me like "What, you're
not interested in what we have to say?" Nope, I wasn't, and I'd seen
John do a glazeover, too. He perked right up and we passed a pleasant
hour, eating ice cream and discussing cruise ships and future plans
not put on hold, while the mommies discussed whatever they thought was
so fascinating about their kids.
We were out of the office, all told, 3 hours while the buildings were
swept for bombs. We found out later that a threatening note had been
found. It was a prank, probably pulled by some disgruntled ex-employee
in one of the other businesses in the complex.
When we went back upstairs, about half of our team (a few childed
women, and all the men, childed and unchilded!) refused to go
upstairs, and took an unpaid day off. The rest of us went and took
calls and tried to unsnarl problems caused by our clients getting
messed over by our "help" desk, which had taken calls in the interim.
I held it together until the end of the day, went out to my car, and
fell apart for a while. How can somebody DO this? Did they think it
was funny watching all their former co-workers standing around in the
parking lots? I hope they catch whoever did it, and I hope they're
still laughing at their tremendously funny prank when the cops arrest
them.
The next day, all the parents that had taken the afternoon off kept
nattering on about how they just wanted to go home and hug their kids.
Their kids, who were in school and not home. Right.
Ginny
RED57 at AOL dot COM - remove "me too" to email
--
Moderator and Big Chief Bulls-eye, ascm
Early to articulate, one would surmise
Makes the CFer healthier,wealthier...
and wiser than the average pik-a-nik basket
Need help? Email ascmhlp AT yahoogroups DOT com
Veronique
[...]
> The emergency strobe lights started flashing, and a man's voice
> announced:
>
> "Emergency. Emergency. There is an emergency situation. Please
> evacuate the building immediately. This is not a drill. Use the
> emergency exits and stairwells to evacuate the building immediately."
> (Yes, I remember thinking at the time 'This is not a daffodil.')
[...]
> I held it together until the end of the day, went out to my car, and
> fell apart for a while. How can somebody DO this? Did they think it
> was funny watching all their former co-workers standing around in the
> parking lots? I hope they catch whoever did it, and I hope they're
> still laughing at their tremendously funny prank when the cops arrest
> them.
Oh, {{{Ginny}}} I hope so too. I used to work in DC at the Air & Space
Museum, around Gulf War time. We averaged a bomb threat a month: one
memorial week, we had three. My inexpert opinion on the perpetrators
is that they are one-stop thinkers. Call in bomb threat, watch
building evacuate. Do they the momenteous waste of time? Do they
consider that the emergency personnel called in may be neglecting an
actual emergency somewhere else? Do they consider anything else at
all?
OTOH, where I worked we had a session on What To Look For during bomb
threats. Apparently, actual bombs are not usually left lying around
looking like a wired mass of TNT sticks. The trick is to look for what
ought NOT be there normally: a briefcase left in a hallway, an
unclaimed thermos in a locker...
V.
--
Veronique Chez Sheep
Love will get you like a case of anthrax.
Ginny
(Veronique) posted in glowing silver runes :
>OTOH, where I worked we had a session on What To Look For during bomb
>threats. Apparently, actual bombs are not usually left lying around
>looking like a wired mass of TNT sticks. The trick is to look for what
>ought NOT be there normally: a briefcase left in a hallway, an
>unclaimed thermos in a locker...
When I was searching around for info on "bomb scare" and "bomb threat"
I found that there's a whole checklist of things that many different
types of businesses and organizations have put on their webpages.
In college, bomb threats were the ultimate "out card" when somebody
wasn't ready for an exam or was pissed off about a grade. Now, it
seems to be purely for the entertainment value.
ama...@postoffice.swbell.net
Ginny wrote:
> When I was searching around for info on "bomb scare" and "bomb threat"
> I found that there's a whole checklist of things that many different
> types of businesses and organizations have put on their webpages.
>
> In college, bomb threats were the ultimate "out card" when somebody
> wasn't ready for an exam or was pissed off about a grade. Now, it
> seems to be purely for the entertainment value.
>
> Ginny
>
Hi, My company used to make us look for bombs back in the
early/mid 80's. Any suspicious package was reported and we
even had to look through the garbage cans. Ahhh, those were
the good old days....except....they're about to make us start
doing it again I think. YUK.
Amanda
Kristy
<red57...@aol.com> wrote:
> In college, bomb threats were the ultimate "out card" when somebody
> wasn't ready for an exam or was pissed off about a grade. Now, it
> seems to be purely for the entertainment value.
WOW! I never heard of a college student calling in a bomb threat to
get out of an exam. I guess the students at my college favored the
"dead grandmother" approach.
-Kristy
ChildfreeinPhilly
> announced:
>
> "Emergency. Emergency. There is an emergency situation. Please
> evacuate the building immediately. This is not a drill. Use the
> emergency exits and stairwells to evacuate the building immediately."
> (Yes, I remember thinking at the time 'This is not a daffodil.')
Jaysus H. Chryst! I would have been like, "WTF???"
>
> So off we went. Amazed, I saw that everyone else was smiling
> sheepishly and standing around looking like "Duh, what do we do now?"
DUHHH! I would have been like, "Move yer ass!"
> Suddenly, it hit me. Life is short, eat dessert first. I wanted mint
> chocolate chip ice cream, and I wanted it at 10:00am.
Damnit, now I want some!!! *it's now 11:06am, EST.
> We were out of the office, all told, 3 hours while the buildings were
> swept for bombs. We found out later that a threatening note had been
> found. It was a prank, probably pulled by some disgruntled ex-employee
> in one of the other businesses in the complex.
I held it together until the end of the day, went out to my car, and
> fell apart for a while. How can somebody DO this? Did they think it
> was funny watching all their former co-workers standing around in the
> parking lots? I hope they catch whoever did it, and I hope they're
> still laughing at their tremendously funny prank when the cops arrest
> them.
Stupid loser. People like that, IMO, are taking up valuable air space. Let's
be rid of them immediately!!
--
"Why must people with closed minds open their mouths?" unknown
Steve Biko: "The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the
MIND of the oppressed."
DEMAND WORLD PEACE NOW!!!!
DON'T ASK, BEG, PRAY, PAY FOR IT...
D-E-M-A-N-D TO LIVE FREE IN THIS WORLD!
Ginny
silver runes :
>> In college, bomb threats were the ultimate "out card" when somebody
>> wasn't ready for an exam or was pissed off about a grade. Now, it
>> seems to be purely for the entertainment value.
>
>WOW! I never heard of a college student calling in a bomb threat to
>get out of an exam. I guess the students at my college favored the
>"dead grandmother" approach.
Oh, yeah, it happened all too often in Eugene in the 70's. The "dead
grandmother" excuse had become such a cliche', and there actually
*had* been some minor bombings on campus 10 or more years before
during the 60's and early 70's. So when somebody called a threat in,
they took it VERY seriously, because they assumed it was some holdover
from the political unrest (Eugene was big on holdovers of many kinds).
Ginny
RED57 at that aol dot com place (don't "me too")
CF Denizen alt.support.childfree
Moderator alt.support.childfree.moderated
Tom Tom Harrington
> OT, but is anyone worried about what they are going to do if war breaks
> out? I'm not so much worried about me, but I am about my cats. I've
> been wondering if I could bring myself to put them down to save them any
> suffering (there's a lot of talk in this country of a possible
> Indonesian invasion - and there's hundreds of millions of them - my
> mother already has plans in place to leave the country if that happens).
> Am I just buying trouble thinking like this? (please say yes)
Geez, I had no idea that Oz was that worried about Indonesia. I guess
that's US news coverage for you, because I was under the impression
that Australia was a pretty safe place right now.
At our house the main war-preparation activity was to review all of
DW's Air Force Reserve paperwork to try and assess the odds that she'd
be called back. It seems unlikely, but not impossible. We're really
hoping it won't happen.
--
Tom "Tom" Harrington ------------ Decode to email: tph (at) pcisys (dot) net
"The world would give you anything, as long as you will want it to."
-Stereolab
Kristy
<n...@spammer.in.sight> wrote:
> In article <240920010916253238%k...@dartmouth.edu>, k...@dartmouth.edu
> wrote...
> >
> > WOW! I never heard of a college student calling in a bomb threat to
> > get out of an exam. I guess the students at my college favored the
> > "dead grandmother" approach.
>
> It gets a bit hard to beleive when you get to your third Grandma. :)
Yeah, I guess it would only work twice per class per term... but then
again, most of the classes had only two exams (midterm & final), so if
the profs didn't compare notes, one could potentially get out of all of
them!
-Kristy
Lozette
> Hi, My company used to make us look for bombs back in the
> early/mid 80's. Any suspicious package was reported and we
> even had to look through the garbage cans. Ahhh, those were
> the good old days....except....they're about to make us start
> doing it again I think. YUK.
The other day I picked up a tour guide to the UK, and looked in the
"London" section for a bit of a laugh (I love seeing what the tourists
have to say about my home town). One of the things that caught my eye
was a warning: "In London train stations and underground stations, you
will never find garbage cans. So if you do create litter, you'll have
to carry it with you until you're on the street".
That caught my eye because for about 5 years now, there have been NO
garbage cans (litter bins) in train stations or tube stations, and for
about 2 or 3 years you'd even be hard-pressed to find one in the
street.
The reason there are none is because they were a favourite place for
terrorists to plant bombs. I found it quite enlightening to realise
that tourists might find the absence of garbage cans bizarre - to me
it's totally normal and I'm used to it.
The other thing they like to use is cars - the Ealing bomb earlier
this year (thankfully none were killed) was placed in a second-hand
black taxi, which would have looked totally normal parked on the
street.
Laura.
Tom Tom Harrington
> The other day I picked up a tour guide to the UK, and looked in the
> "London" section for a bit of a laugh (I love seeing what the tourists
> have to say about my home town). One of the things that caught my eye
> was a warning: "In London train stations and underground stations, you
> will never find garbage cans. So if you do create litter, you'll have
> to carry it with you until you're on the street".
> That caught my eye because for about 5 years now, there have been NO
> garbage cans (litter bins) in train stations or tube stations, and for
> about 2 or 3 years you'd even be hard-pressed to find one in the
> street.
> The reason there are none is because they were a favourite place for
> terrorists to plant bombs. I found it quite enlightening to realise
> that tourists might find the absence of garbage cans bizarre - to me
> it's totally normal and I'm used to it.
It's also near-impossible to find luggage lockers in the UK that are
still available for use. On my last trip there were a couple of times
when it would have made life so much easier if I could have locked up
my bags at a train station for a while rather than carrying everything
with me, but apparently it's too much of a security risk. This is why
my pictures of the trip often show me carrying an enormous backpack in
unlikely places. Thank you, IRA, thank you so very much.
--
Tom "Tom" Harrington ------------ Decode to email: tph (at) pcisys (dot) net
If you do not accept this to be true,
then you are insane, and will be locked up.
Veronique
> In alt.support.childfree.moderated Lozette <loz...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > The other day I picked up a tour guide to the UK, and looked in the
> > "London" section for a bit of a laugh (I love seeing what the tourists
> > have to say about my home town). One of the things that caught my eye
> > was a warning: "In London train stations and underground stations, you
> > will never find garbage cans. So if you do create litter, you'll have
> > to carry it with you until you're on the street".
>
> > That caught my eye because for about 5 years now, there have been NO
> > garbage cans (litter bins) in train stations or tube stations, and for
> > about 2 or 3 years you'd even be hard-pressed to find one in the
> > street.
>
> > The reason there are none is because they were a favourite place for
> > terrorists to plant bombs. I found it quite enlightening to realise
> > that tourists might find the absence of garbage cans bizarre - to me
> > it's totally normal and I'm used to it.
>
> It's also near-impossible to find luggage lockers in the UK that are
> still available for use. On my last trip there were a couple of times
> when it would have made life so much easier if I could have locked up
> my bags at a train station for a while rather than carrying everything
> with me, but apparently it's too much of a security risk. This is why
> my pictures of the trip often show me carrying an enormous backpack in
> unlikely places. Thank you, IRA, thank you so very much.
On our way through London from Brighton to Oxford, we stored our packs
at the locker check at the Natural History Museum. I knew why there
weren't any lockers at places one would reasonably expect them (like
the train stations) and I admit I felt a tad peculiar checking my bag
at the museum. It made me feel as if I *might* be a terrorist without
knowing it AND as if the museum, offering this service, would now be a
focus for bombs.
I don't suppose the average terrorist considers that being able to
live in a reasonably comfortable manner (disposing of one's garbage
easily and conveniently*; not hoisting one's heavy luggage hither and
yon) is an end in itself?
V.
*Hmmm, wonder if there was a concommitant increase in disposable
diapers being left on the street when the trash cans vanished?
--
Veronique Chez Sheep
Love will get you like nine times eight.
Tom
Here in Atlanta a male flight attendant (young totally clueless kid)
called in a bomb threat from his cell phone about his pending flight
because his boss refused to give him the day off. He wound up getting
forever off - besides getting arrested, the airline fired him.
BTW - my ISP (bellsouth.net) is totally clueless - I try telling them
the moderated group is not configured right, and I get a canned E-mail
back. Can someone clonk their heads together and get some action? I'm
against a wall of stupids.