This thing ended up being longer than I anticipated, so here's an index for your pleasure.
0. In The Beginning
1. Enter The Gunman
2. Locked In The Basement
3. The Yankees Were Losing
In The Beginning
Things have been winding down at the office this week what with us putting the finishing touches on an energy conservation campaign we're working on. Our primary co-worker has been out of town since Sunday, and we pretty much finished all the "important" work that needed to be done before the kickoff event next week. The location I'm working at has also been running various operational scenarios this week to determine how well various contengency plans have been organized and layed out. I am not typcially involved in these tests and while they cause slight annoyances at times, are generally fun to watch. Examples include:
- Fake IDs and "Runners"
- Random fishing attempts
- Massive spam distribution
- Fire/toxin/bomb threat drills
- Network security breaches and attacks
Enter The Gunman
I got up from my desk, and am about to look out into the hall when I find myself inches from a pair of dark sunglasses. I yanked myself away from the door and saw that the sunglasses were accompanied by a gun, a bottle of vodka, and a man. He immediately starts pointing the gun in my face and intermittently drinking from the bottle and telling me to leave and to "GET ON OUT OF HERE!!! LEAVE!!! YAAAAAEEEEH!!!" It was at this point I realized that this was either part of the exercise, or I was dealing with a really poorly prepared gunman.
First off, who goes around telling everyone to leave the office before you shoot them? Not a good murderer. Then who decides to drink straight vodka while their in the middle of shooting up the office? Surely no one who wants to have a decent chance at hitting a moving target. I won't even go into who someone would wear sunglasses in doors in a brightly lit hallway. But the biggest tell in the rapidly deteriorating situation was the bright yellow cap at the end of the gun barrel. It was an airsoft gun. The most I had to fear from this guy was that he would leave a little bruise if he shot me with his toy gun.
I was kind of miffed that he had not informed us that this was an exercise (which it was later confirmed as), but decided to paly along anyway. I rushed back over to my desk and took cover as per our guidelines for this situation and waited for him to leave. Now usually you take cover in your office when something like this takes place and we were about to shut and lock the door when someone stuck their head inside and told us the floor was being evacuated because of the prementioned gunman. Since this new player was offically incharge, I and 5 other people on our floor followed his directions and headed for the exit. This is where the real trouble began.
Our little group arrived at the exit where we were greeted by a security guard and another of our coworkers who was supposed to have been checking people for banned items (such as guns...). It turns out our original plan to barricade ourselves upstairs was what we were supossed to do and we were forbidden to to leave the building. We also couldn't go back to our floor because of the "dangerous shooter." So we spent some time hanging out and harrassing our door watcher about how she got us all killed before being herded off to the basement and locked inside a group of cubicles. It was here we were joined by another victim of this horrible tragedy.
Locked In The Basement
It was now 4:30 pm and some of our party were getting ready to leave the basement and head for home. Afterall, how long does it take to takeout a gun with a toy gun w/o a single hostage? We waited, and waited , and waited...and nothing. It turns out that some of the other people on our floor had left after us and used another door. They were stopped and held by security in the parking lot and were preventing us from being fully accounted for. Things were looking bad for our little group. Fortunately for us, we soon discovered that we had been locked inside the cubicle group which was incharge of the office snack bar! Now we had hope.
It took some 45 minutes of waiting and calling the support staff before anyone decided to come down and further the scenario. Two "SWAT" members with full body armor, automatic riffles, and handguns burst into the basement. We were being rescued and needed to follow their orders exactly if we wanted to survive this thing. They would lead us out of the building (making sure to raise our hands to signify we weren't a treat), send us to a secure parameter (staying low to the ground and moving as fast as possible), then have us flee to a new (even more secure) basement safehouse. There was to be no talking, no cutting up, and if we weren't careful the "SWAT team" outside might mistake us for treats and shoot us with beanbags or tackle us to the ground...I swear I am not making this up.
We followed our armed escort out through the building and were ushered outside where some dozen armed personnel had surrounded our building. We raised our hands and croutched as we ran to safety. Well, some of us ran. Once we had reached the secure area behind the dumpsters we were order to head to the "Blank A" building basement. We followed our orders like brave little freed hostages and were joined along the way by others who had been taken from the building. Seeing as I have no idea as to the proper names of the buildings around my office, I relied on others to lead the way until we reached our destination.
The Yankees Were Losing
It was now 5:20 pm and we all wanted to go home and/or eat dinner. It helped that the new secure area had a TV, pool table, and other assorted entertainment areas, but we lost our access to food and drink. Seeing as we were the last of the hostages to be freed it made since that the whole affair would be over soon. We resigned ourselves to the short wait we were forced to endure and turned the TV to ESPN where the Yankees were playing Tampa Bay (I'm a Yankees fan by the way).
We waited for 30 minutes, all the while talking about how this whole farce had been screwed up something royal, before we got tired of waiting and called the event planners again. The line was busy. After trying several times we eventually got ahold of someone who explained that if we could account for all of our current party we could leave since the event had actually eneded some 20 minutes ago! We were both frustrated, and glad to have it over with. Several people had kept people they carpool with waiting hussled themselves out to meet them.
As we walked back to our office we saw the two original "SWAT" members who had saved us and waved at them. They waved back and asked where we had gone after they escorted us out the building. Apparently they had no idea where the actual "Blank A" building was and had been searching a facility two buildings away. If they had found us we all could have gone home... So to recap, our coworker failed in letting the shooter inside the building, our event planner failed in telling us the proper instructions to follow, our escort failed to let us the proper building to evacuate to, and we missed out on an hour of work and an hour of our lives. I have since heard that this simulation was labeled a great success and wonder what definition of "success" they subscribe to. Don't get me wrong though, I'd gladly do it again. It beats the pants off of working.
- TiH
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