How do you deal with lockdowns and/or fire drills?

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Hi all,

Registered to post this one, though I've been lurking for a bit before now.

I'm absolutely TERRIBLE with fire alarms. I actually recently managed to articulate to people that I'm actually more afraid of the damn things than I am of fire. At least fire has the common decency to be relatively quiet.

I remember one of the worst nights of my life was in my 2nd year of college. I had had a huge argument with my then-girlfriend (she was paranoid that I was becoming romantically involved with a friend of mine - I wasn't - and it escalated to her screaming and threatening all sorts of vile things) and so my nerves were shot as it was. Then the dorm fire alarms decided to malfunction. The halls were flooded with deafening electronic screaming, on and off, at unpredictable intervals, for unpredictable durations, all through the evening until maintenance finally killed the system altogether around 11:00 while they looked for the short or whatever caused the problem. At least twice the abominable things went off when I was standing right under a klaxon. People started asking me why I was covering my ears walking through the halls but I think the looks I was giving them must have given them pause and found them thinking better of it.

I must give credit to the administration of MIT, though, for their choice in dormitory alarm systems. I visited a girlfriend's friend there (great school, wish I hadn't been so hung up on staying close to home and work) and stayed in his dorm room. First night the fire alarms went off...which consisted of a few quiet beeps followed by a synthesized voice calmly explaining that a fire alarm was in progress and advising residents of the building to proceed to the nearest exit when the "alert tone" sounded. The alert tone was a mild ascending-pitch "bwoooOOOOP bwoooOOOP" noise. First fire alarm I'd ever heard that I can honestly describe as "not scary." As an IIT student I do not say this lightly, but go MIT!