Evacuation

As is standard practice, whenever a fire alarm sounds, an evacuation of the building is required. My company is no exception; in the not-too-rare instance of an alarm, employees are well-trained to make their way out of the building as soon as possible.

Sometimes, the alarms are for real incidents. Other times, they are not.

Last night's call was the former. A sensor detected smoke in the building, and sounded the alarm, spilling all employees out into the parking lot. The fire department arrived, sirens screaming, to find a burnt, smoking bag of popcorn in one of the breakrooms.

Hey, at least the the sensor worked.

There have been other incidents, too. One of the most memorable was the employee who housed a toaster at his cube. With all the flammable materials nearby, including fabric cube walls, this genius still thought it was perfectly fine to keep a heat-generating, electricity-sucking appliance in his workspace.

And one fateful day, his cinnamon toast combusted, setting off the smoke alarm and evacuating the building.

The Fire Department was not amused. The toaster was confiscated, and thrown into the trash.

But the most memorable incident had to be the one a few years ago. I missed this particular call, but it was immortalized in that month's call logs. An older employee, celebrating his birthday in a conference room with his coworkers, innocently blew out the candles on his cake. The resulting smoke, from the numerous flaming candles, set off the sensor, and evacuated the building.

I hope the Fire Department wished him a happy birthday.

I swear I cannot make this shit up.