Fire Drill....

It was 3:30 on Wednesday afternoon when Peterson was playing a steady innings in 5th ODI against India at Cuttack, I was following ball by ball score on cricinfo.com suddenly there was some disturbance on speakers above my desk. We were sure it is about the fire drill, which everyone was aware of since morning. People had already made plans, what they are gonna do during that time...some were palnning for long tea/coffee break and most had plans to have early EOD from office. But unfortunately that was just the speaker check...the first failure of the drill. Later in 10 minutes we had proper announcement and siren announcing the evecuation of the office. The lady on the speaker was trying to sound like it was a panic situation, and she managed very well....she asked everyone just to leave the desks as it is and leave the office premises though staircase. As everyone was aware of the drill, they were pretty replaxed and were not at all understanding the criticalness of the situation/drill. They were logging of the system, picking up tiffin boxes from the desk, dropping mail to the manager or client, packing their bags and picking up helmets so that they can leave for their other plans. Jas and I stepped got up from our desks and asked other team members to do the same but some of them were busy...sorry to see that. We left our bay immediately and to our surprise people were still on their mobile phone with GOD knows who rather than taking part in the drill. At our reception I saw people chatting and making fun of the drill instead of taking the stairs to the assembly point. I suddently realised that nobodywas aware of the assembly point...there is no asembly point mentioned either in the office or in the building campus.

Anyways we took the stairs and reached out of the building where there was a wooden stage set for the fire drill officer from bangalore to make announcement. He was in a shock seeing well educated people from Accenture..non less than MBA's or Post graduates or Engg. graduates taking this drill as a joke or a way to have an extra break in the day. There was no head count taken, people waiting for their friends to come out and hanging outside like they do during the lunch time. Later on I cmae to know that some ppl even took lifts to go down from 1st floor of the office. There were ppl who left for the day well before the drill started....

Seriously even I was surprised seeing whatever happened and ppl taking it so casually. Even I might have been in the same boat if i had not attended fire drill's during my stay in London, where it is a complusion to have a fire drill in every building once in 6 months.

One thing I didn't undestand why the senious management of the office like the AMs and above were aware of this drill. Drill should be a real drill where people should think that there is a fire somewhere on the floor and they have to act on it. While talking to Nishant on the way back to home, he mentioned that if we have a drill where ppl are not aware of it then there might be a panic situation and there might be some casuality. But I think thats what the drill is all about, where ppl should think that there is a real panic situation and the way they react in it and later tell them the mistakes they made during the situation and the consequences they can face if they act the same way in real time....I am not sure whether I am right...but one is sure that people havn't learned anything from yesterday's FIRE DRILL session at the office....