In schools and at work, every now and then they do a 'mock' fire bell, they test all the bells to see if they ring and evacuate the children and staff so they know what to do in the event of a real fire. At work, fire bells are tough, see children follow adults out of the building where as our customers seem to totally ignore the fire bell and continue with what they are doing!! Maybe the bells need to be even louder than they already are?! 

Anyway, I was part of a fire bell ....let's call it 'thing' becasue I have to idea if it was a test or an accident...this week and the rules everyone knows are as follows:

'In event of a fire, leave all your possessions and move calmly but swiftly out of the building and towards the fire assembly point. Do not panic'. I've heard this so many times I can recite it to you word for word! 

Simple instructions and it's safe to say no one panicked, but leaving your possessions behind is a asking for a bit much! The fire bell went off, we waited becasue it could have been a test but it kept ringing. So everyone got up, looked at their things, and at this point it was as if people were deciding if they should take their belongings or not, and so they grabbed ALL of thier stuff and left the building. I saw this because I was unsure if I should take my things too, and since everyone did, I also did - I followed the crowd, not always a good idea I know! 

Notice how the one thing we all knew was to not take our things, yet the one thing we all did was to take our things. It's like when someone asks you what you would do in an emergency situation and you tell them what you should do, because what you would really do is run as fast as you can screaming at the top of your lungs! But you can't tell them that even if you know it's true. 

So by looking at this incident, it's safe to say we didn't forget the rules becaue that moment of pause shows that we, those who were part of the fire drill, knew exactly what we were supposed to do, instead we decided to ignore the rules. However, in our defence, we did not panic and it says 'don't panic' - credit for us I think! 

In times like this, sometimes the rules aren't always flung out of the window completely, they are just hanging there for a while waiting for calm before being reeled in.