3-Alarm Irksomeness

I come in to the office very early in the morning. I tend to wake up anyway, traffic is light, and I get a long afternoon to myself. I also find that I can get a lot more work done in the morning when there aren't too many people around.

We got word yesterday that they'd be testing the fire alarms in our building this morning. They've done this before, it's usually no big deal.

This morning is different. Our gummint wouldn't allow this sort of thing to be used on prisoners in Abu Ghraib. At this point I'm willing to admit that I was the second gunman on the grassy knoll, if they'd just stop.

For about the 10th time this morning, every few minutes, I've been subjected to:

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!
THERE IS A FIRE EMERGENCY IN THE BUILDING. YOU ARE TO LEAVE THE BUILDING BY THE NEAREST EXIT STAIRWAY. DO NOT USE THE ELEVATOR.

Flashing emergency lights, the voice of God coming from nowhere and everywhere, and a siren that is obviously designed to break all the windows in the building before the fire can do it, repeated multiple times per test.

I've been in the office for an hour and a half, and I have officially reached the point that I'd much rather take a chance on being burned alive than to hear this alarm again. How much testing does a system like this need?

It works already! I can tell it's working, why can't you tell it's working?!?!?!

Moses would have extinguished the burning bush if it had been accompanied by this sort of cacophony.

It's like trying to work at a Rush concert, except that the noise is not quite that offensive.

Maybe I should just take a really, really early lunch....