Fire Drill

Today they held an emergency drill at work. It is the first one they have done since I have been working here and it was quite interesting. Of course there were several aspects that were similar to the drills we all know: the alarm sounds and everyone stands up orderly and heads to a predetermined location.

But Japan likes to do things in an even more organized—or should I say, militaristic—manner.

At about noon I was called over to a meeting with my boss, Ito-kacho, who went over the procedure with me. Everything was organized and planned for down to the last little thing. For the drills there was the floor leader, the vice-floor leader, the room leader, the section leader, etc. Everyone had their specific duties—and lines to memorize—for when the “earthquake” happens.

At 3:25 the PA system switched on and the announcer informed us that they would soon be holding a drill—at least we were prepared for the fake earthquake.

At 3:30 the PA system switched back on and announced “This is an earthquake. This is an earthquake, ” and everyone got down underneath their desks. Then when they announced that the earthquake was over everyone started dashing around. The section leader called a section meeting and then they went about their task. They reported back to the section leader who then jogged over to the floor leader to tell what had happened. Then the other room leaders came in to tell the floor leader what was going on. And then we all went back to our desks.

Fifteen minutes later the PA switched back on announcing that the conference room on the 2nd floor had caught fire and we all needed to make our way calmly to the designated evacuation spot. It was raining really hard today so they moved it from outside to the large reception hall on the first floor.

I was responsible for carrying all the “important” things in the office that needed to be rescued…ie. an empty box covered with white paper on it. So I got to hold a box. After some confusion because no one knew when we were supposed to make our way downstairs we went down the 5 floors to the first floor and stood in our special line. Each floor had their own line and we lined up in rows. It seemed very Kindergarten Cop.

I had been told to put the box with all the other boxes on the far side of the room, but everyone else seemed to be holding theirs or keeping it by their feet so I did the same. Then they started making a ton of announcements. The head of the division responsible for handing emergencies came jogging in. He ran to the front of the room, stood at attention, and saluted the crowd. He yelled something (and I have NO idea what) and everyone responded. Then they went down the line and he saluted each floor leader who in turn jumped to attention (and I do mean military attention), saluted, and shouted that the entire floor had been emptied. Then the mayor gave a long speech and every once and a while people would yell and everyone would stand at attention; they yelled again and people would turn their heads to actually look at the person speaking (otherwise they kept their heads straight forward); they yelled again and people snapped their heads back; and they yelled one last time and we relaxed. They did this several times.

Then the fire chief gave a speech, and talked a little about the fire that had been set at a pachinko parlor in Osaka. We bowed and then we were dismissed by our floor leaders.

I hate to admit it but I found it very hard not to laugh throughout the whole thing and this post is barely concealing the fact that I found it somewhat ridiculous. Of course Japan has its own way of doing things and it seems to work because everyone has their own responsibilities. It was just so different from what I am used to that I laughed primarily out of discomfort.

The Boy had to take part in a special training that actually was a lot like this. Standing at attention, yelling, etc. all for dealing with fires or earthquakes. They turned it into a competition (and I would have paid the big bucks to see it). He really found it ridiculous too. But I guess it all ties in together.