[JohnLudi]

I have to vent and it's too early to call any of my friends.

I live in an musician/artist friendly highrise that has a generally under 30 demographic (mainly because of its close proximity to a college). This morning I woke up to a LOUD ringing alarm bell. I had no idea what it was, but I thought it might be potentially important as it was so frigging LOUD!

Went downstairs to see what was up and it was ringing inside the locked utility room too, where all the headends for all the alarm systems are located. Called the apartment manager and the number was disconnected. Called the 24 hour emergency number and got some complacent gum-chewing Trixie who did nothing. Walked all the hallways in the building just to make sure it wasn't a fire. After about another 15 minutes with no emergency vehicles or managment arriving to save the day, I called the Trixie again and lit a fire under her ass to get a response going...after a long deep sigh she said "Oh OK, I'll call it in".

At this point ONE other guy showed up downstairs...a middle-aged guy who had just moved in. FINALLY, about 10 minutes later, another middle aged guy shows up just as fire trucks arrive...a full 45 minutes after this really f**king LOUD alarm started sounding for ALL to hear. They determine that it was just a broken sprinkler head that some drooling moron probably hit with their van on the way out of the garage. So nothing life-threatening, fortunately.

The point of all this? Despite that fact that this place probably has about an 80% occupany (maybe 60 or so apartments), I am one of THREE people who actually give a s**t enough to try to ascertain the nature of the REALLY LOUD ALARM going off at 7 AM! No one was in the hallways...no one even poked thier heads out of their apartments while I was walking around trying to make sure the building wasn't on fire.

During the time between the first and second call to the Trixie, I had collected my laptop and external drives (the ones that have all my music files for the albums I'm recording...don't want to lose that stuff), my files, and a few other can't-live-without things on my "Mission Critical" list of stuff to take with me in the event of a fire or similar calamity. So I was ready to bail, really in about 5 minutes. If I had smelled smoke I would have moved a LOT faster. Yet I didn't hear a peep from any other apartments...and still don't as I'm writing this. The fire guys just left, and all the kiddies are still sleeping off the buzz they probably bought last night with their parents money.

So WTF? What does it take to get people (especially the under 30 set) to take an interest in things that may effect them? If it was a fire, would they have waited until the flames were melting the jewel boxes of their Fountains of Wayne CDs before they acted...or would they have just roasted alive like pigs on a spit?

And maybe they deserve it...complacent little f**kers.

If this ever happens again, and it's a real emergency, I'm covering my own ass as much as I can and walking away...let 'em burn, the apathetic little cretins.

[Ferretlover]

John, perhaps now would be the time to get a bugout bag ready and keep it by the front door?... I remember hearing about one other Chicago fire....
That lack of response by TPTB does not bode well for your future safety!

[JohnLudi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ferretlover', 'J')ohn, perhaps now would be the time to get a bugout bag ready and keep it by the front door?... I remember hearing about one other Chicago fire....
That lack of response by TPTB does not bode well for your future safety!

[jasonraymondson]

Some questions for clarification

1) How long have you been living there?
2) During the time that you lived there have to sirens gone off before?


Complacency can develop over time to stimuli that has repeatedly been shown to be negligible. If these students have lived in this building over a longer period of time that you have, perhaps they have had to deal with a buggy alarm for the duration of their stay.

I see this with alot of people at my own college where they have bi-weekly fire drills. Last semester we had an actual fire at 5 am and the student wouldn't get out of bed thinking that it was a just another drill.

[JohnLudi]

1-Over a year.
2-No...just a car alarm seranade every few evenings.

It WAS the actual fire alarm too...it being hooked up to the sprinklers. The 2nd guy that came down had been living here for 10 years and was freaked out because it's the actual fire alarm.

Most of the students here tend to only stay for a year or two. Yes, I thought about the familiarity-borne apathy idea, but no, from most of the other behavior I've noticed around here, they really ARE that dense...

[Twilight]

Write to the building management describing the sequence of events, pointing out that their employees' response [names / telephone numbers] indicates a lax safety culture or a complete breakdown of accountability, and make an explicit connection to the atmosphere of complacency you witnessed among the residents.

Demand that they revisit their procedures and address the atmosphere of complacency they encouraged through their inaction (it is important to stress this) by making a communication to all residents as soon as possible explaining what management are doing to address the problem, and how they can assist.

Sign off by saying that the authorities will be holding a copy of the letter in the event of another incident. This should do the trick. Companies hate liability.

Have another place to stay lined up.

And remember that although everyone around you might be an ignorant fool, a wise man accepts some civic responsibilities.

[strider3700]

Remember the other two people you met while looing into the issue.
You are surrounded by two people that are worth being concerned about and everyone else are sheeple. Either befriend those two people now or be prepaired to either befriend them or take them out when things get ugly. Everyone else can easily be dealt with when the time comes.

[jasonraymondson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', 'R')emember the other two people you met while looing into the issue.
You are surrounded by two people that are worth being concerned about and everyone else are sheeple. Either befriend those two people now or be prepaired to either befriend them or take them out when things get ugly. Everyone else can easily be dealt with when the time comes.

[Ferretlover]

Remember the lesson from "The Body Snatchers." Behave like those around you, then slip away.............. (And, don't go to sleep anytime soon! *giggle*)

[Baldwin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jasonraymondson', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', 'R')emember the other two people you met while looing into the issue.
You are surrounded by two people that are worth being concerned about and everyone else are sheeple. Either befriend those two people now or be prepaired to either befriend them or take them out when things get ugly. Everyone else can easily be dealt with when the time comes.

[jboogy]

Reminds me of that story about that woman that was assaulted and raped for something like a half an hour outside her apartment building in new york , difference was alot of people heard her screaming and still couldn't be bothered to call the police , they knew someone was in trouble and still did nothing , I'm embarrassed to admit I was guilty of this kind of self-centeredness once , I was in a bank about 20 years ago filling out a slip at one of the tables and heard a noise/commotion behind me , I turned and noticed a man had collapsed at one of the teller windows , I turned back and continued my writing and when I had finished and turned to go to the tellers I saw that everyone else had congregated at the man and were concerned and trying to offer assistance , I had not , I was in a hurry and didn't want to be bothered . I felt little shame at the time but the memory of my behavior that day has never left me.

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jboogy', 'R')eminds me of that story about that woman that was assaulted and raped for something like a half an hour outside her apartment building in new york , difference was alot of people heard her screaming and still couldn't be bothered to call the police , they knew someone was in trouble and still did nothing , I'm embarrassed to admit I was guilty of this kind of self-centeredness once , I was in a bank about 20 years ago filling out a slip at one of the tables and heard a noise/commotion behind me , I turned and noticed a man had collapsed at one of the teller windows , I turned back and continued my writing and when I had finished and turned to go to the tellers I saw that everyone else had congregated at the man and were concerned and trying to offer assistance , I had not , I was in a hurry and didn't want to be bothered . I felt little shame at the time but the memory of my behavior that day has never left me.

[JohnLudi]

Thanks for the feedback, kind folk...it is definitely valued.

The thought that keeps occurring is that for all the people who basically laid around and said "whatever...someone else will take care of it", I got to be the "someone else" once more.

Gonna have to stop doing that.

And along those lines, I was delighted to find that the following piece in The Onion is still in their archives. I think most of you will be able to relate to it:

"Nations Experts Give Up"

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29351

[basil_hayden]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('roccman', '
')Similarly here...I wanted to post something thoughtful on Shannymara's grief thread.

I read every post and when done said to myself, "looks like she has enough help"...and moved on.

Oh well - so it goes.

As the road to Olduvai is litter with mounds of decaying bodies...her grief and mine will have faded to black...

It will become solely about self.

[lys3rg0]

Wait, you keep critical files on hard drives with no backup? That could lead to major disaster, hard drives fail all the time.

I have one that lasted 5 years, so for a while i thought hard drives were really safe. Then, last year, i needed a second drive, and i had 3 failures in 6 months until i finally got lucky and bought another one that looks rather stable.

I use online backup on hosting sites and several free mail accounts with large inbox capacity. But i have nothing really important, that would really alter my life if i lost it. Your next album sounds like it would be worth a paid online backup service.

[JohnLudi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lys3rg0', 'W')ait, you keep critical files on hard drives with no backup? That could lead to major disaster, hard drives fail all the time.

.