All Shook Up I
I know, I know, all you west-coasters are giggling at the east coast for all running into the streets for a lil old 5.8 earthquake, but, you see, we are not used to it, so we're a little wimpy.
I was at my desk at 2:00 pm, wondering why the cleaners, whose closet is directly behind my office, were thumping that damn machinery around so much and so early. So the floor shook; it always shakes when they're slamming mops and floor scrapers and the like around in that little tiled room - the acoustics are remarkable in there. You could do a concert from in there.
But they kept slamming stuff around, and so I got up the go around the corner, out into the hall to ask them to give it a rest, but when I got out of my office into the central space, everyone else was standing out there, and I could hear the walls of my office groaning and flexing. Whuh? *pause* The penny drops.
Okay, we all look at each other and head as one animal out into the hall. I was picturing those movies of Japanese earthquakes that go on for 2 minutes until cascades of heavy pointy things start falling on poor Nipponese heads, so I was thinking, doorway, get in a doorway, but once in the hallway, it was apparent that the doorway principle was for places where there were solid wooden beams supporting doors, not metal struts, and when I said, "Where from here?" someone said, "the hell out of the building" and we all ran for it. By this time the alarms were going off.
Now let me say that some of my fellow workers, inured by years of annoying fire drills and bomb drills and biological agent attack drills, usually don't hot-foot it out of the building just because of some flashing lights and sirens. People stop and get their purses, go pee, turn off their PCs, put on a little makeup. I kid you not.
No one in my office area stopped for even 10 seconds. As soon as we all clued to the situation, everyone took a brisk pace out the nearest exit. I think there must have been more noisy flexing of office walls in our corner of the building, to help add urgency, because when we cleared the exit downstairs, a lady behind me laughed, looking down, and said, "I forgot to put my shoes on." Sure enough, her feet were clad only in a lovely orange pedicure.
Later, I ran into management (who shall remain nameless) from the other side of the building who had purses, emergency packs, blackberries, and who did in fact stop to change their shoes. In the middle of an earthquake. On a non-ground floor of a building not designed for earthquakes. This is why they are management, and why, even though several of these folk are sterling human beings, they will not be in charge after the apocalypse. They will still be in the rubble while the shoeless beautifully-pedicured employees are roaming the streets eating squirrels and slow-moving fellow-employees.
I was at my desk at 2:00 pm, wondering why the cleaners, whose closet is directly behind my office, were thumping that damn machinery around so much and so early. So the floor shook; it always shakes when they're slamming mops and floor scrapers and the like around in that little tiled room - the acoustics are remarkable in there. You could do a concert from in there.
But they kept slamming stuff around, and so I got up the go around the corner, out into the hall to ask them to give it a rest, but when I got out of my office into the central space, everyone else was standing out there, and I could hear the walls of my office groaning and flexing. Whuh? *pause* The penny drops.
Okay, we all look at each other and head as one animal out into the hall. I was picturing those movies of Japanese earthquakes that go on for 2 minutes until cascades of heavy pointy things start falling on poor Nipponese heads, so I was thinking, doorway, get in a doorway, but once in the hallway, it was apparent that the doorway principle was for places where there were solid wooden beams supporting doors, not metal struts, and when I said, "Where from here?" someone said, "the hell out of the building" and we all ran for it. By this time the alarms were going off.
Now let me say that some of my fellow workers, inured by years of annoying fire drills and bomb drills and biological agent attack drills, usually don't hot-foot it out of the building just because of some flashing lights and sirens. People stop and get their purses, go pee, turn off their PCs, put on a little makeup. I kid you not.
No one in my office area stopped for even 10 seconds. As soon as we all clued to the situation, everyone took a brisk pace out the nearest exit. I think there must have been more noisy flexing of office walls in our corner of the building, to help add urgency, because when we cleared the exit downstairs, a lady behind me laughed, looking down, and said, "I forgot to put my shoes on." Sure enough, her feet were clad only in a lovely orange pedicure.
Later, I ran into management (who shall remain nameless) from the other side of the building who had purses, emergency packs, blackberries, and who did in fact stop to change their shoes. In the middle of an earthquake. On a non-ground floor of a building not designed for earthquakes. This is why they are management, and why, even though several of these folk are sterling human beings, they will not be in charge after the apocalypse. They will still be in the rubble while the shoeless beautifully-pedicured employees are roaming the streets eating squirrels and slow-moving fellow-employees.