Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K

Note: I'm going to give my attorneys fake names for the purposes of this blog, so that I don't have to keep referring to them as "one of the attorneys," "the associate attorney," etc. So, they shall henceforth be referred to as Jane (the tiny, hyper woman), Max (the appellate dude), and Molly (the associate).

I had another slow, boring day at work, until about 3:30 or 4:00, when I suddenly had five things to do that all had to be done by the end of the day. (On a side note, at one point, Max was starting to explain to me how something needed to be done and why, and I was all like, "Oh, yeah, I've already done that. Yeah, that's how I did it." and he said, "This job is too easy for you, isn't it?" -- not in a sarcastic way at all, but rather in a way that indicated that he realizes that, well, this job is too easy for me. I think that's a good thing -- maybe it means I'll have a decent shot at getting promoted into a more interesting position before too long.)

Anyhoo, before I got swamped with work in the late afternoon, I'd been reading the news online about the plane that hit the building in Manhattan today. So, even though that turned out to be non-terrorism-related, I was of course thinking back to 9/11, massive building evacuations, state of emergency, etc.

Then, at around 6:00, just as I was finishing up and getting ready to head home, the fire alarms in the building started going off. I ignored them at first, because they go off at least once a week, followed quickly by an announcement that it was a false alarm and should be disregarded. But this time, the alarm kept going off over and over again, and after a few minutes, the receptionist came by and told us that she had called security and they had told her to evacuate and take the stairs. So, down thirteen flights of stairs we went.

Since it was the end of the day anyway, we opted to evacuate to the parking garage, which is across the street from the building, and go home. Just as we were getting to the garage, we heard the muffled voice of the security dude making an announcement, but at that point, we couldn't hear what he was saying. We assumed it was the usual "false alarm, please disregard" announcement, but didn't feel like going back to check, since we were already free and clear of the building. I guess I'll find out when I go in tomorrow if the building is still standing or not, but I'm pretty sure the whole thing was a false alarm. I didn't see any fire trucks or anything. Some jagoff on another floor probably burned some popcorn in the microwave or something.

It was kind of unnerving to hear the alarms go off and be instructed to evacuate the building via the stairs on the same day that a plane hit a building in New York, though. Nothing like a little adrenaline rush at the end of the workday. Oy.