Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Lock me up, then push me out!!!

So I went to work this morning - same old, same old boring stuff. We were sitting there for our first break this morning at 8:15 this morning and we notice an armed security guard walk in. That is unusual, but we still don't think anything of it. We ask the guy why he is here and he said that the company was considering bringing on more security. We get back to work and by 9 our supervisor comes in and tells us that there was a message written on a stall in the mens bathroom in our building that said "I hate this place, I will be bringing a gun to work on February 26th and opening fire at lunchtime in the building 7 lunchroom. Building 7 is the building I work in. They informed us that the city police would be patrolling outside the building and that added armed security (our usual security do not carry guns) would be inside the building. We were welcome to leave if we felt uncomfortable at work. They told us to not leave the building and that if we did need to leave, to leave through one door in the building. All the doors would be locked at work except for one door and that door would have an armed guard by it. If we left the building, we were to sign out with our supervisor.

I felt pretty safe, knowing that it was probably just a dumb threat and that people who actually do things like this - do not advertise what they are planning. We continued through our day. We were a little bit nervous as lunch began to approach. Around a half hour before lunchtime more security began to arrive and our building manager was looking through everything. We have a first aid room right outside of the lunchroom and he was looking under the mattress and everything. He even checked the women's bathroom so I heard! Right before lunch our company President came racing through the building, almost like he was looking for something. I think he just wanted to check and make sure that there wasn't anything happening - but I gained a lot of respect for him today! When lunch approached there were a few policemen outside our lunchroom doors and a few inside our lunchroom. Our company President and one of the VP's came and sat in the lunchroom for lunch. It was a very nice gesture - almost to say that papa bear was looking out for us! Lunch went by pretty uneventfully!

We went on another break at 12:45 and we saw that our building manager had taken his laptop and was working from the lunchroom. It is very comforting knowing that our bosses truly care about us and were willing to make sure that everything was safe.

Around 2:30 we noticed people started darting for the door. We asked them what was going on and they said they were told to go home and that someone would be coming through and telling us the same. Just that time the building manager came in and told us that things had changed and that the situation had escalated and we needed to grab our things and go home. We were told to leave through one door and only that one door. They told us that if things have not been resolved by tomorrow that they will not let us come back to work.

I think they have a suspect and that they hopefully will have it all figured out and that we will feel "safe" tomorrow.

1 comments:

LCP said...

Wow, oh my goodness. I am glad that your company took it all so seriously, with everyting going on these days. So what happened Wednesday, were you able to come back to work or was there really a problem. Keep us up to date!