Slowest fire evacuation ever

Today at work, just about forty-five minutes before knocking-off time, we had another fire alarm. Usually, it's not really anything serious but you just can't tell and safety procedures are in place and need to be adhered to, of course. It was a slow and lazy Wednesday afternoon and the few students who were dotted around the three floors of the library were loath to get up and vacate the premises. If there had been a genuine fire my guess is that forty percent of them would have been roasted to a fine crisp. At long last they had all cleared off and we, the staff, could exit the building and wait in front of the main entrance for the all-clear or otherwise from the security services.

My colleague and I were waiting outside for about half an hour and all through that time there was a steady trickle of students and academic staff who ambled ever so leisurely out of the building, one of them a full twenty minutes into the fire alarm, which mind you was still screaming its mechanical head off. Hard to miss you would think.

I just don't know what these people are thinking of when they so blatantly disregard a sensible safety precaution. Do they have a death wish? Are they rebelling against the pervading health and safety regime? Do they think they're flame-proof? Oh well. People sometimes really are morons, that's for sure.