My place on the corporate totem pole has apparently not progressed much since last fall, despite having hired 6 new people to the Denver office after my start date. Last time we had a fire drill, all the newest employees were thoughtfully volunteered to assist on the emergency response team. I was convinced that at least some of these new people would be recruited in a similar manner. I wasn’t so ambitious as to think I’d be done with my Stairwell Monitor Tour of Duty, but I my mind, I was already promoted to Stairwell Monitor #1. You might be scoffing, but this one is a BIG DEAL.
Because Stairwell Monitor #1 doesn’t have to guide people down 27 flights of stairs; their job is to assist the disabled. But in a fire drill, that just means hanging out in the break room after everyone else has journeyed out to the streets below, watching CNN with the sound on. Man, I was ready for that gig. Unfortunately, our office management had different plans. Instead, everyone has the same role as last time. Which is a shame, because I would have been SO GOOD at being Stairwell Monitor #1.
I guess if you’re trying to look at the bright side, this time I was at least invited to the fire warden meeting. Last time I was just told what to do for the drill, but today I got to go to the building-wide planning meeting. It served a much-needed college flashback, sitting in the back of a big room listening to someone passionately lecture about something of minimal concern to me. (Also, fire wardens bring cookies to their meetings.) Another sign of my pretend increased responsibility is my awesome FIRE WARDEN hat! And yes, I do have some stellar pictures of my red, flat-brimmed baseball cap. And no, I’m not posting.
I hesitate to publicly confess my inadequacy as a concerned citizen of the workplace, but last time I was a less than ideal Stairwell Monitor #2. Primarily this was because I was so concerned about changing into comfortable shoes for the 27 floor hike that most of the office had already evacuated before I got to my station. Maybe if I have a better showing this time around, I’ll make my way up that corporate ladder after all…
If anyone asks me “so, tell me, what is Rachel like?” I’m pointing them to this.
because it randomly mentions food in the middle of normal conversation? sounds about right. I would also need To USe CAPItaL leTTerS in RanDOM PlaCEs so that they would realize that I’m not very good at controlling the volume of my voice. then they’d have an almost complete picture…
This is good information, because I’m thinking that it’s possible for your building to actually catch fire some day. And it’s also possible that if that happens maybe the alarms won’t sound, so you won’t even know what’s going on, and when everyone is frantically looking for you I could fly in wearing a cape and say, “Did you check the break room?” And I could save your life.
that would be cool.