Fire Watch
By Jeff Moffitt
@moffittjc (118442)
Gainesville, Florida
March 9, 2016 5:38pm CST
I am the lucky soul whose name got drawn tonight to be on Fire Watch at work...something I'm very much not looking forward to.
We are replacing the fire alarm system in one of our buildings at work, and local fire code dictates that when a fire alarm system is disabled or not working in an occupied building, someone must physically keep watch over the building until such time as the alarm system is working again.
So unfortunately for me, I have to now sit and watch a building all night long, and write and submit a report every hour detailing that I thoroughly inspected the building and confirmed that it is not on fire!
I'm going to have a rough night! Actually, tonight won't be rough, tomorrow at the office will be pretty rough! At least I have nothing major scheduled at work tomorrow, so I can catch a few quick zzzzz's before heading back in to work.
The real bummer is that I am a salaried employee, so I won't get paid anything extra for doing this. But I have a pretty cool boss, so she'll let me flex my time to make up for the extra hours worked. I think I will take advantage of that next week, since St. Patrick's Day is coming up! I thoroughly plan on celebrating to the full extent, so it will be in my best interest to take the next day off.
Hmmm....maybe this fire watch detail isn't so bad after all!
8 people like this
9 responses
@DWDavis (25812)
• Pikeville, North Carolina
10 Mar 16
I remember during basic training we had to trade off doing Fire Watch duty in the barracks even though there was an alarm and sprinkler system in the building. What we usually wound up doing was scrubbing down the latrines so they'd be ready for inspection the next day.
1 person likes this
@DWDavis (25812)
• Pikeville, North Carolina
10 Mar 16
@moffittjc After a few weeks, only the screw ups got assigned fire/latrine duty. I made sure I didn't screw up and never had it again after about the fourth week of basic.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118442)
• Gainesville, Florida
10 Mar 16
@DWDavis I guess that's one way to motivate soldiers to fall in line and behave accordingly! But you always have to have screw ups, because otherwise who would get assigned the crap jobs? lol
Did you ever have to dig holes, and then fill them back up, just because the drill sergeant felt like making you do it?
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118442)
• Gainesville, Florida
10 Mar 16
I would much rather stand there staring at the barracks making sure they didn't catch on fire than scrubbing the latrine for inspection! lol
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118442)
• Gainesville, Florida
9 Mar 16
One of the things I best love about my job is that no two days are ever the same! Keeps it interesting.
@amadeo (111948)
• United States
9 Mar 16
@moffittjc yes,at least you will not get bored.How do you manage to stay awake?
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118442)
• Gainesville, Florida
10 Mar 16
@amadeo I won't be able to stay awake the whole time. I usually go to bed around 1:00am every night, so I'm good until at least then. After that, I'll just sleep and set my alarm to get up every hour and inspect the building. Shouldn't be too rough of a night...as long as the building doesn't catch on fire! lol
1 person likes this
@Blondie2222 (28611)
• United States
11 Mar 16
Well I hope it all goes well and your boss lets you make up the missed hours.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118442)
• Gainesville, Florida
12 Mar 16
Everything went great, and I actually wasn't as tired the next day as I thought!
@dazzledlady (1618)
• Philippines
9 Mar 16
I think it isn't really bad at all. The struggle is you just have to keep your eyes open all night long. What you can do is comment on mylot's discussions so you wont get bored.Time not wasted, watching a building and earning:P
@moffittjc (118442)
• Gainesville, Florida
9 Mar 16
I will keep myself occupied on the computer as long as I can, and then when I get tired I will take a nap, and just set my alarm to wake me up every hour. I'm a very light sleeper, so I won't have any trouble at all waking up when my alarm goes off every hour!
@dazzledlady (1618)
• Philippines
9 Mar 16
@moffittjc haha maybe add before you take a nap go on tour on your building. But sounds like a plan to me. I'll probably take a nap too in the holy hour of 1-4 am :P that's the time when you get really sleepy.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118442)
• Gainesville, Florida
9 Mar 16
Well, in honor of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day, I would say in this case that it has a green lining!
1 person likes this
@VivaLaDani13 (60355)
• Perth, Australia
20 Apr 16
Did you get bored doing fire watch? How the heck did you manage to do that all night and work next day with very little sleep?
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118442)
• Gainesville, Florida
21 Apr 16
I didn't get too bored! I did a lot of work (and play) on the computer, and caught up on a lot of reading. I took a lot of power naps as well. Really, the night went by pretty fast, and I wasn't as tired as I thought I would be the next day.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118442)
• Gainesville, Florida
10 Mar 16
I have a great boss, and she always makes it up to me somehow. I don't ever worry about going above and beyond for my job.
1 person likes this
@JudyEv (325759)
• Rockingham, Australia
10 Mar 16
I hope you have an alarm (other than a fire alarm) to wake you each hour. I'd be worried about sleeping through.
