Month: April 2018

How many people does it take to stop the fire alarm from beeping every minute?

Today I got to work and the fire alarm was beeping in that “my battery is dead” beep.  I told the dispatcher and said that if he could change the battery it would probably save the life of the person I would kill if I ended up listening to it all morning.

He and company’s general dogsbody guy went in and opened up the alarm.  No battery.  It’s hooked up directly to the electric.  There was no button to push to turn it off.  It just continued to beep.

So they called the owner.  He came in and was sure he knew the solution.  But couldn’t figure it out.  One of the general managers showed up and spent sometime in there with the owner, at one point falling off a ladder but not getting hurt.  Several drivers gave pointless commentary.

So the owner called the fire alarm company.   Turning off the electricity was tried on multiple occasions.  He even went so far as to turn off the electricity in the entire building.  That fucking thing just kept beeping in the dark.    The fire alarm company told him it couldn’t be beeping if they turned off the electricity, despite the very reality that it was in fact beeping.

He called in an electrician.  He and the electrician spent 2 hours searching for a sensor that could be beeping.  Finally the electrician gave up and left.  It was still beeping.

You know – in the old days this beeping would have been competently handled by the dogsbody.  He would have replaced the battery.  The owner would not even have been aware that the dogsbody did it until Monday morning, if then.  It would have been that trivial.

Instead highly paid people spent 6+ hours trying to fix it and failing.  And I’m not really sure we have that much greater advantage to this fire alarm system than the old independent battery operated units being set up every so many per number of square feet.

When I left it was still beeping.  Tomorrow the fire alarm people will show up and attempt to fix it.  I don’t hold out much hope.  I think the building could burn down and that fucker would still be beeping every minute.

Stereotyping

A couple of weeks ago someone left a phone on one of our charter buses.  They called in and said the tracker said it was at our location.  The calltaker asked a dispatcher to check.  Dispatcher sent a driver.  Driver came in saying – No phone.  Calltaker asked dispatcher to check again.  Dispatcher went himself, came in – No phone.

Calltaker, exasperated with both of these men, went out herself.  Got the phone.  The look on the dispatcher’s face was exactly this comic when she showed him the phone.

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tahilalats.com 

One of the gender stereotypes we perpetuate is that men are apparently blind when looking for a thing that is right in front of them and women are not.  It’s funny because we all know a story that aligns with the stereotype.

But I must be the exception if that is true that women see things men don’t because I am often blindly staring at things I am looking for.    I think many women are.

So many gender stereotypes are funny.  A way to bond with our friends over stories.  But they remain problematic.

Because so many of them are either patently untrue, or perpetuate a social norm that is harmful to both society and individuals.  So many of the roles and norms we assign to masculinity are negative and harmful.  Men don’t have feelings.  Men don’t don’t need help, they are self reliant and strong.  Men fight they don’t hug.   Men don’t clean.  Men can’t find anything.

So many things that we accept are very hard on men and women.  But we have somehow normalized them.  It’s odd how easy it is to find something toxic or just plain incorrect to be normal and right.