Different Pond, Different Fish
Different Pond, Different Fish
Different Pond, Different Fish. Let’s
talk about it. I arrived in Canberra and checked into City Walk Hotel on
Thursday afternoon at about 5.30 pm. I was making notes for my presentation for
AusAID the following day when suddenly a loud siren started blaring. I jumped
off my chair, not knowing what the siren was for, then I heard something like
‘…evacuate building through the nearest exit door…’ I could only
think, ‘What? Is it a fire? This can’t be true. This must be a fire drill.’ But
then the siren kept on blaring and I heard the announcement again and again and
I started to tremble. ‘What should I do? Who should I ring?’
In panic I grabbed my handbag and my
mobile phone. Funnily I still remembered to turn off the TV because I was
afraid it would explode as I thought the fire was next door. Luckily I
remembered reading a notice somewhere : ‘In case of fire do not use the lifts’,
but where was the exit door? Where were the other people? Then I saw the green
exit sign and I was half running, half walking down the stairs. When I was
finally outside there were many people outside already. I asked people what was
happening but no one knew. I didn’t see any fire from outside and that made me
a bit calmer. Five minutes later the hotel staff told us, ‘It’s okay, you
can go back to your rooms. Someone was smoking on the ground floor.’ Oh, I
felt relieved but still in disbelief that cigarette smoke could set off the fire alarm. What a sensitive alarm, I
thought. What a lesson learned!
Safety and safety procedures are very
important in developed countries like Australia. Safety is a priority for
schools, office buildings, hotels, and all other places. In Indonesia we may
not be used to this kind of thing because it’s not a priority in our culture.
At IALF we have fire drill regulary and honestly I never pay attention because
I know there is no fire, it’s only a drill. But when we faced with a real life
situation I was in complete shock and panic!
