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Tuesday 24 May 2011

Initiate emergency shut down procedure…


So, I’m at work minding my own business, cruising the internet…I mean hard at work on stuff that I do when the mood takes me…when the GM emails me from his office which is oh, gee, probably ten paces away and emails ‘we need to initiate emergency shut down procedure. Please ring X now and walk him through it.' My first immediate gut reaction was ‘we have an emergency shut down procedure????’ Next thing I get an email with half the world cc’d on it saying ‘Amarinda will talk them through the emergency shutdown procedure.’ Now, I can talk with a mouth full of marbles while under water but WTF is this emergency stuff and why would I know? I’m not paid to be knowledgeable. I emailed back ‘I have no idea what it is. Sorry, can’t help.’

The GM then emailed back ‘You can do it.’ I think it was like a pep talk. I emailed back ‘no, really, I have no bloody idea whatsoever what you are talking about and if this is an emergency I would think emailing back and forth isn’t helping.’ So, he came out of his office and looked at me. I looked at him. He then said, ‘Well, I guess I’ll have to go find the emergency shutdown procedure and read it to them.’ I nodded and said, ‘Yeah, might be an idea.’

Twenty minutes later, emergency shut down procedure was initiated 10-4 over and out. The GM said 'do you want me to explain what it is?’ I indicated that it sounded like something a high level executive should have knowledge of. It sounded better than ‘oh god no, I’m not paid enough for that.'

The moral of this story is don’t rely on anyone in my workplace to initiate anything other than ordering food in, making coffee or knocking off bang on 5pm.