Bomb threat in the office
Yes, it's no joke at all. Some individual finally cracked it and decided to try and blow the company I work for to kingdom come, sending a fake bomb to our building in our level 8 office. (Well, considering it was fake, scaring our personnel and inconveniencing our operations were the results).
Just a little before 2pm EADT the fire alarm in our building went off. Some thought it was a fire drill, others thought it was the workers downstairs causing some problems again (burst water pipe last week), while another guess was someone trying to sneak a smoko inside the building since their smoking area has become off limits with the renovations.
My colleague in charge of emergencies called our Admin manager to ascertain what was happening and the next thing we were hearing was "Evacute! Everyone Evacute! It's no drill".
From last year's fire emergency experience, we quickly got our cellphones and bags and evacuated the building. Being right next to the emergency exit, we were down from the 6th floor fairly quick.
Before we could get to our allocated emergency spot, as few buildings down, our OD (org devlp't) manager called out to all of us to move onto the park behind our office. There we were trying to work out what was the actual cause of the emergency evacuation. Being well connected with the other people from our other departments, my other colleague quickly found out the cause. Considering that the department who received the *package* is pretty connected to our own department, it wasn't long before we started remembering certain *special people* and created a **possible** list of suspects.
Our top three were (in no particular order):
- Drunk/drugged, sweaty man who came and terrified our reception last week with his complaints, demands and large suspicious bag.
- Mental lady who came to our office several times last year with her unreasonable demands and bogus assumptions. (She thinks she's being monitored by some group of people therefore would not discuss anything on the phone. Later I found in the documents she provided us a scrap of paper with a note along the lines of a free mental/psychological assistance facility)
- Freaky, abusive, threatening, rude man on the phone two weeks ago, using a digital voice, demanding we provide the information he wants immediately or else he will come down to our office with police in tow.
Well, we definitely had police, detectives and possibly a bomb squad in our level 8 office today. They eventually, worked out that it was a fake bomb (though I heard mentions of fertilizer) and allowed us back into the office by 4pm. Although level 8 was still off limits for investigation. Some people had already gone home before 4:00 ...management advising that we could go. Us, too busy sharing with each other our experiences with *difficult* people - as prompted by the situation ... stayed back until we were back in the office again and resumed operations.
Being famous for my "workaholicness" my colleague commented that I finally got a bit of a break. Jokingly, I told my colleague..."well, it seems that it takes a bomb threat to get me to stay away from work".
Just a little before 2pm EADT the fire alarm in our building went off. Some thought it was a fire drill, others thought it was the workers downstairs causing some problems again (burst water pipe last week), while another guess was someone trying to sneak a smoko inside the building since their smoking area has become off limits with the renovations.
My colleague in charge of emergencies called our Admin manager to ascertain what was happening and the next thing we were hearing was "Evacute! Everyone Evacute! It's no drill".
From last year's fire emergency experience, we quickly got our cellphones and bags and evacuated the building. Being right next to the emergency exit, we were down from the 6th floor fairly quick.
Before we could get to our allocated emergency spot, as few buildings down, our OD (org devlp't) manager called out to all of us to move onto the park behind our office. There we were trying to work out what was the actual cause of the emergency evacuation. Being well connected with the other people from our other departments, my other colleague quickly found out the cause. Considering that the department who received the *package* is pretty connected to our own department, it wasn't long before we started remembering certain *special people* and created a **possible** list of suspects.
Our top three were (in no particular order):
- Drunk/drugged, sweaty man who came and terrified our reception last week with his complaints, demands and large suspicious bag.
- Mental lady who came to our office several times last year with her unreasonable demands and bogus assumptions. (She thinks she's being monitored by some group of people therefore would not discuss anything on the phone. Later I found in the documents she provided us a scrap of paper with a note along the lines of a free mental/psychological assistance facility)
- Freaky, abusive, threatening, rude man on the phone two weeks ago, using a digital voice, demanding we provide the information he wants immediately or else he will come down to our office with police in tow.
Well, we definitely had police, detectives and possibly a bomb squad in our level 8 office today. They eventually, worked out that it was a fake bomb (though I heard mentions of fertilizer) and allowed us back into the office by 4pm. Although level 8 was still off limits for investigation. Some people had already gone home before 4:00 ...management advising that we could go. Us, too busy sharing with each other our experiences with *difficult* people - as prompted by the situation ... stayed back until we were back in the office again and resumed operations.
Being famous for my "workaholicness" my colleague commented that I finally got a bit of a break. Jokingly, I told my colleague..."well, it seems that it takes a bomb threat to get me to stay away from work".