An Alarming Lack Of Alarm, Part 6

I was interviewing for a position in a factory. Had pretty good pay and benefits, and I’m a certified welder, so I was looking forward to starting.

I had one of those ‘panel’ interviews where you sit down across from three people: My actual to-be manager, someone from HR, and a bigwig.

However, during the interview, the fire alarm went off. The person who was supposed to be my manager, of course, stood up and started to leave, faster than I did, but the bigwig demanded that the manager (and I) sit down and that they finish the interview. The HR representative remained calmly sitting.

I was already by the door myself at this point, so I just shook my head and left.

I stuck around in the parking lot just long enough to figure out who the fire safety representative was, tell him my name and that I’d gotten out of the building safely, and then I drove home. I did hear fire trucks at some point as I was driving home, but I never saw them. They must have come from another direction.

I don’t know what happened to the three interviewers. I glanced behind me at the end of the hall and didn’t see anyone leaving the room, so I assume that the manager sat back down at the table, but why they would bother staying after the person they were supposed to be interviewing left is beyond me, especially during a fire alarm.

I later read in the news that there’d been a fire on the production line and several people had to be treated for smoke inhalation, so it wasn’t a false alarm.

Related:
An Alarming Lack Of Alarm, Part 5
An Alarming Lack Of Alarm, Part 4
An Alarming Lack Of Alarm, Part 3
An Alarming Lack Of Alarm, Part 2
An Alarming Lack Of Alarm