It’s A Double Emergency

It’s a summer weekend at the casino, which means that it’s loud, it’s crowded, and there are quite a few people about. Fortunately, my job tonight is to clean the restaurant dining rooms. This is probably my favorite assignment. It’s busy work, but as the restaurants are closed by the time I get to them, I get to avoid dealing with people.

For the most part, anyway.

It’s about midnight, so by now, I’ve worked my way up toward the front of my first restaurant. A man walks in. I shut off my vacuum and am about to greet him when I notice where he is.

He’s standing before a set of two large glass doors, one of which has a large red sign reading, in large white letters, “EMERGENCY EXIT.” These doors are, of course, an emergency exit.

I freeze with a mixture of shock and dread. He’s… not actually going to try to use these doors, is he?

Oh, God, he is.

As he reaches out a hand to open the door, I shout out:

Me: “Wait! That’s an emergency exit!”

I’m too late. The door with the large red sign opens, the alarm sounds, and the man pauses, as if shocked by this turn of events.

By now, I am close enough that I can smell the problem on his breath. I guide him back to an actual exit, which is easy to miss even when you’re sober. The phone being too close to the alarm, I make my way to security to explain what happened and so they can send someone to turn off the alarm.

A few weeks pass. Once again, I’m assigned to clean the restaurants. Once again, it’s about midnight, meaning that once again, I am cleaning up near the front of my first restaurant when a group of women walks in, stopping before the set of two large glass doors, one of which has a large red sign reading, in large white letters, “EMERGENCY EXIT.” These doors are, of course, still an emergency exit.

“Oh, God, not again,” I groan to myself.

I shut off the vacuum and run up to them.

Woman: “Can we go out this way?”

Me: “No.”

I point to the large red sign which reads, in large white letters, “EMERGENCY EXIT.”

Me: “This is an emergency exit.”

I guided them to the actual exit and returned to my vacuuming, lamenting the lack of common sense in this world.