Fire alarm — Blog — Healy Chen

Stay off the weed

You know it’s nearing finals when the frequency of false fire alarms at the university library is increasing. These stressed kids are smoking joints to relieve the tension. Sadly for them, the library’s smoke detectors are sensitive and automatic. Students think it’s okay to take a few drags in the bathroom (and it’s almost always the bathroom) and then next thing later the whole building is evacuating. No gripes from me, however: I can use the walk outside from actually working.

Also during work yesterday I attended - via Zoom - my best friend’s dissertation defense. It’s kind of wild to do one of these things virtually, but it had to be done since one of his advisors is still working remotely (must be nice, says me who now goes to campus the full five days). That said, the ease of logging into Zoom meant people could attend without having to travel. It was nice to see basically the entire friend group taking time out of their workday to be there for our soon-to-be doctor. And congratulations, he is officially a doctor now!

Just not the kind that resuscitate people during medical emergencies. He should remained seated when they ask if there’s a doctor on a plane.

It’s getting to my favorite time of the year working on a campus: graduation season. Coming out of the pandemic I reckon this will be the first year that ceremonies big and small will return live on campus. Back in the day when I did AV support for some of the events, I always got tremendous joy seeing the students attain their degrees after years of hard work (and play, let’s be honest). It’s the culmination, the finality, and opening the door to the next stage, that’s so rewarding to see.

Looking forward to my best friend’s ceremony in about two weeks’ time.

Buildings should have smoking rooms

Yesterday, work on campus was going just fine when the fire alarm sounded. More annoyed than any sort of panic, as is the wont these days when the alarm sounds, everybody in the library filed outside while the grown-ups figure out exactly what triggered the alarm. You’d think I’d be happy about the reprieve from actual work, but our office is a service point, and when we’re all outside waiting out an alarm, we are unable to fulfill our duties for the rest of the campus community.

Mind you it’s not out of an intense dedication to my job; I rather not deal with the backlog afterwards when we do get let back into the library building. Obviously my feelings would be different if the building was visibly smoking or on fire, but as it’s usually the case, yesterday was only a false alarm.

Set off by someone vaping in the restroom on the fourth floor. The library building is decidedly modern in that it lacks any physical pull triggers for fire emergencies: it’s entirely predicated on detectors, which ironically they have to crank up the sensitivity because a human is unable to intervene first. Many a times now we’ve had to evacuate the building due to precisely the same scenario: the vapors from a vape pen triggering the alarm. It’s quite annoying, I have to be honest.

Not that I am against vaping or smoking; we’re a university, so everyone for the most part is a proper adult. Therefore the decisions you make - like choosing to smoke - is entirely up to you, so long as the consequences is limited to you and only you. I am not in agreement with the wholesale ban of smoking/vaping on campus with no provisions for dedicated smoking areas; people are going to smoke regardless, and I think we should provide space for them to “safely” do so without bothering the general public.

This is where I think Asia and airports are ahead of the curve: spaces feature dedicated smoking rooms where people can do there business. Even the 7-Eleven I went to in Japan had a smoking room. By allowing space for such activities, you avoid the ignominy of smokers setting off fire alarms because they have to clandestinely vape in the bathroom. I think our library building should construct and designate rooms specifically for smoking and vaping, so the rest of us won’t be interrupted from our work and studies.