AIBU to think customers’ behaviour about evacuating in the heavy rain was childish

[Loppp]

I visited my local supermarket this morning. It was dry at the time. The supermarket’s fire alarms were going off, when the thunder and lightning happened along with torrential downpours.

Some customers were being difficult to evacuate the store as it was raining! Guessing that from those who moaned at the staff and security were the older side.

How pathetic did these customers sounded?

The fire assembly point is not under cover.

Unsure on what way you want people to vote but I’m not surprised.
Nobody wants to stand out in a thunderstorm, especially the elderly.

If there genuinely had of been a fire they’d be barging past everyone with their shopping to get out.

Well if it was an actual fire, then they would have a choice between getting wet or risking their lives.

If it was just a drill then I suppose it's ok for them to have a moan about standing in the rain.

A thunderstorm and getting soaked through with rain are not benign risks. The latter particularly if you are older/ frailer. It's not even like you can safely put up an umbrella with the storm.

We often can't avoid this though.

I’ve had to evacuate a supermarket due to a real fire. It was extremely difficult and frustrating because they wanted to buy their shopping first! It took the power failing to get the last customer out!!

Assuming these are physically cable and NT people, you ask once, you tell them twice then you get yourself out of Dodge and let them face the consequences.

Staff should undertake fire drills at the most inconvenient time so they can experience the challenges presented before it actually matters.

Drills aren't for customer convenience. Fires and bomb threats happen during rainstorms. Whine away, the shop are doing the right thing.

The sentence starting 'Guessing that...' doesn't actually make sense to me but maybe that's probably because I'm on the older side. Older side of what I don't know.
Happy oldie bashing. Signed, an oldie 🤗

I wouldn't stand outside in lightning! I'd rather just stay in the store TBH and take the risk! If the store was being evacuated then I'd probably run to my car.

Nobody acknowledges that having too many fire drills causes "the boy who cries wolf" attitudes in people.

I'm a teacher and we have fire drills frequently, as per guidance. If there's ever a "real alarm", as we had one year in the kitchen, there's zero urgency from anyone and they amble about.

I think drills need to be well planned but not too frequent.

People are pathetic in general. I worked in a book shop at uni, and we served coffee in a little area in the corner. Someone had a heart attack and died at the front desk whilst he was waiting to pay for his books. We had to close the shop, and get everyone to leave out the back door. The young and middle aged people left with no issues, but the older generation did nothing but bitch and moan about how they’d just bought a coffee and were not leaving until they were finished - everyone was being refunded for what they’d bought, but no, we had to argue with them
whilst a man lay dead on the floor.

Some insane replies. Whether it's a real fire or a fire drill, you evacuate, you can whine about it, but once you're outside. Tough titties if it's raining, the Asda cashier on minimum wage doesn't control the weather, nor fire, nor the store policy.

We had to evacuate a garden center the other day. We were outside, and we had to evacuate to a different part of the outside. Was it annoying? Yes. But we all bloody did it in a timely manner.

I wouldn’t be standing out in the open during a lightening strike. I wouldn’t want my elderly parents to be standing in torrential rain. Some children would love to run around in a thunderstorm - I know I used to! It’s not “childish” to be aware of the very real risks of being exposed to the elements.

Drills need to be treated as if there's a real fire.

If people are 'ambling about' during a fire drill, they need to be pulled up on it and told to evacuate as if the building is actually on fire.

Less frequent fire drills is not the answer to your school not doing fire drills properly.

My school does it very well. We get them out quickly and calmly. But you don't understand human nature if you're dismissing the boy who cries wolf mentality. If something is done too often, people get blasé about it.

Do you drive the same route everyday? Ever notice how your attention wanders while you're driving it? And yet you should have your mind on the road and its hazards, just the same as on a foreign motorway.

I've been evacuated from a shopping mall in the past due to a suspicious package. To give you an idea of the size of the place the car park has space for 5000 vehicles.
It turned out that it was someone's shopping but in the moment one has to assume it's a bomb and take the most appropriate action irrespective of the weather.

Customers don’t have to stand outside a supermarket until it’s safe to re enter. They are not roll called like with staff. Customers can do what they please - bar entering the supermarket.

I picked up my prescription from the chemist opposite and went home

My friend worked for a supermarket and the store flooded. Customers wanted to buy their shopping and refused to move even though they were ankle deep in water.

Its not like the supermarket is the only place where food is sold

An ageist thread, we haven't had one of those in ages...

The whole purpose of the drill is to find problems before it's a serious incident.

A finding from this particular drill should be that the lack of safe, undercover space meant people were unwilling to evacuate/ elderly shoppers were concerned about slipping etc. The correct response is consideration of a solution e.g creation of a covered walkway.

If people don't want to participate, that's their right. Stay put and wait to find out if it's real or a drill. Unfortunately this could result in elderly people trying to evacuate themselves at pace which increases their risk of falling, without any available support (because staff have rightly already evac'd) in a real fire.

Wow, thats insane. Do you think they were just trying to be completely oblivious about what had happened, or a general disregard for human life! Imagine a book or coffee being more important than the dignity of a dead person, likely shock and trauma of the staff nearby, and work of the emergency services who would I assume still have needed to come and get him?!!

When we had the Manchester Bomb in 1996 we were trying to evacuate the area and people were just complete and utter twats about it. Refusing to leave shops because they wanted to finish their shopping; arguing about being refused entry to particular roads etc etc. As we all know there was an actual bomb and thanks to the Police no one was actually killed although there were some injuries but no thanks to a lot of the general public.

I work in leisure centres. You can imagine how much the customers enjoy being evacuated from a swimming session when the fire alarm goes off 😂

(No, you can’t get your bag. No you can’t get dressed. Here’s a towel to put round you now off you go’)

I love that you're getting a oneupmanship in this thread early.

OP, do you not leave your house very often? Because no one, unless there's actually evidence that this is a fire or genuine emergency, rather than a routine drill, is going to abandon shopping they might have spent half an hour amassing, and bound cheerfully out into a downpour smiling and waving like Fotherington Thomas.

Absolutely, fire drills are important. Absolutely people should evacuate promptly, regardless of weather conditions. But no one can make them do it without making it clear they think it's a total pain in the ass.

Why were they being kicked out though if they were away from the dead man?