Fire Alarm Panic!! !

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Argh. Time for some cathartic ranting...

<rant>

Tonight at work the stupid fire alarm went off because some idiot smelled smoke coming from a busted light bulb. God, if you're THAT worried, use the fire extinguisher! That's what insurance is for, isn't it?
The alarm is near the office where I work in the building, and it was horrible. I screamed so loud and suddenly I hurt my throat, and it was so loud and... piercing! that I nearly tripped over my own feet going down the stairs trying to cover my ears which felt like they would start bleeding at any moment! Granted, I trip up and down those stairs on a fairly regular basis, but I'm clumsy and I can accept that...
Then, once the fire dept. gave the all-clear, we all went back inside and I was a half-hour behind on all my work and I couldn't finish it properly tonight... I had to write an email to my co-workers (day shift) explaining why my work was incomplete...

*takes a deep breath*

Ok, I'm done.

</rant>

Thanks for listening.

First, I hope it wasn't TOO bad physically, and that the only "scars" left are ANGER!

Well, I HAVE mentioned about THAT a lot! That is what really kept pushing me towards some type of autism. I originally didn't realize that so many mental "disorders" had that. I guess I am lucky because I don't scream, etc... It IS painful for me. Even low volume sounds of a certain frequency. LUCKILY, for them, it is RARE I find out who is responsible. One of these days I might let them have a taste of what it feels like.

WOW, a LIGHTBULB, huh? What kind? It's hard to believe any lightbulb would set them off. Outside of a couple "REAL"(Real meaning that maybe, possibly, it COULD have gotten enough out of hand to be an actual fire) problems, like the LAST one, almost all of the problems I had were due to some idiot burning stuff(almost always in the MICROWAVE), or just a faulty fire alarm!

HOW do you burn stuff in the MICROWAVE? I use one ALL the time! About 5% of the time I am distracted, or forget! I have NEVER triggered a fire alarm! MY secret? I use the stupid TIMER on even the cheapest and oldest Microwave I ever saw! I SWEAR, some seem almost as old as I am, and today maybe couldn't be sold for SCRAP.

BTW the LAST time was kind of nice. GRANTED, we had to stay in the COLD for 1.5 hours, and EVERYONE hated it! I didn't eve get a discount. I never even got the WHOLE story. But HERE is what I saw, and was able to discern.....

Some idiots were burning stuff that they COULDN'T burn, because there were fire alarms everywhere, so they covered the detector with plastic! They got carried away, and ANOTHER fire alarm tripped. The fire department(I counted about 5 BIG trucks), and police were called. EVENTUALLY, the police questioned 2 people, and led one of them away in handcuffs. BTW both were questioned INSIDE where it was warm! They SHOULD have had the fire department hose them down so they could be questioned OUTSIDE! MAYBE they would have even gotten frostbite!

Oh well, I hope you feel better, and that people at work learn something.(I know, it is RARE)

Steve

It's really aweful when they are testing the fire alarm at the school where i work. The principal kept turning it on and off and i had to keep my hands over my ears and then she looked at me funny because i was the only one covering they're ears so i thought the heck with this and waited outside till they finished.

Don't worry, I had that fear too. After my Autism improved, it got all better. It is an Autism thing.

Improved? You make it sound like a disease.

I have this issue to. When they have the alarm drills I have to use my noise-cancelling headphones.

Actually, I'm the only one in my entire class who can bear fire-alarms! I just sit there and indulge in it! Although I'm not sure if I've heard some of the ear-cracking ones...

And Flagg, of course you know that he means improved his abilities to deal with Autism, right?

Oh, she probably means that the sensory issues associated with autism improved.

And, anyway, you have to admit that autism holds you back less and less as you grow older and learn to work with it--it might as well be called "improving", even though the basic brain structure changes very little.

Words can be slippery things.

I meant the sensory issues, emotions, social skills, and things of that sort will improve over time. Just remember, you'll have Autism forever.

Fire Alarms have allways terrified me. When I was in kindergarten, S. a boy in my class pulled the fire alarm and I've been freaked out my them ever since. Even planned fire drills scare me. I get all shaky and if the alarm went off at night (as would happen durring college in the dorms) I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep for the rest of the night. When I Was a sophomore the fire alarm went off 4 times in 2 nights durring mid'terms week. I was very crabby.

I have that a lot as well!

Yeah my coworkers think Im strange because Ill flee the building with my hands over my ears during fire drills.

They try to console me with "Its just a drill dont worry there isnt a fire" to which I can only reply "Fire doesnt bother me its the alarm thats more dangerous to me"

Fraya,

That is the funniest part! It is like when I recently went to get a COMPACT car, and they rented me a "minivan"! THEY thought I should be HAPPY because "it's the same price!! !", but I was ANGRY because it meant my whole perspective changed, and I had to allow less space(otherwise, I couldn't even get it out of the parking space)! They may EVEN feel they are doing you a favor, yet it could end up being a BAD mistake! I was lucky by the way! Not even ONE scratch. Still, I wasn't satisfied until they had the car.

Steve

I dont mind traditional fire alarm bells as they just overload me on volume, but the shrieking modern sirens are aweful as the throbbing is like after having been bashed on the head as well as the volume.

Whoever invented the modern kind should spend eternity in Hades.....along with whoever the person was that invented low-flow toilets.

Kindergarten was hell for me partly because of all the loud noise-inducing things at school. First, there were the fire alarm bells. Then we had that blasted tornado siren on top of the school building that went off while we were outside during recess. A couple of police officers showed the class their squad car complete with a demonstration on how the siren worked. And of course, I had my very first field trip....to a fire station!

I once lived in an apartment building that was supposedly for the disabled and handicapped. Well, their fire alarm system would have been more suited to a concentration camp or a prison compound. It was so loud, that you could hear it more than five blocks away. It was accompanied by strobe lights that flashed so rapidly that some tenants who were seizure prone would succumb. I tried repeatedly to plead with them to adjust the alarm system to to better meet the needs of the population it served, but they kept assuring me that the deaf people couldn't hear it. If you ask me,it was overkill. I have never been so happy to move out of a place!

WOW! Deaf people can HEAR loud sounds? NEWS TO ME! I watched shows for the deaf, etc... They always showed sign language, and spoke of having blinking LIGHTS for the deaf! The IDIOTS you spoke of should be subjected to that INCESSANTLY for a WEEK or more! They will become "hard of hearing",or possibly go deaf! THEN they can appreciate the problem. YEAH, some idiots put ME in a handicaped room at a hotel once. It had a sign outside that said PLEASE KEEP RINGING! I RAN to the door yelling "************************STOP********************************" everytime anyone came to the door! They just wouldn't listen. If that happens again, I am likely to disable the switch by ANY means necessary.

Steve