Fire

The office caught on fire yesterday. Isn’t that every cube-dwellers dream? The office burns down and work is cancelled and everyone gets paid to head to the pub for the day? Fortunately no one was hurt; unfortunately, we did not get out of work.

As the fire alarm began blaring we sat around discussing whether or not we should leave the building. We’d had a fire drill the day before, so we weren’t sure what to do. However, the risk management manager arrived to tell us to leave and we pushed into the throng of people jostling down the stairwell.

Once outside, we huddled together against the cold in our respective departments. One person from each group shifted between departments to find out what had happened. All that I know after the 45 minutes outside is the following:

1. A vendor left a box on or near the stove in the test kitchen.
2. The box caught on fire.
3. The fire department doused the fire and half of the fifth floor so that a number of people had to move their stuff down to the next floor.
4. There was a lot of smoke damage.
5. As of today, it is still wet and smelly upstairs.

I have been able to use the excuse that we had a fire at the office a few times today to shirk my own responsibilities, but the end of that excuse is fast approaching. Oh well, back to work.