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.

I wasn't expecting sympathy i was pointing out that fire drills are useful for revealing lack of suitable evacuation routes to avoid deaths like this.

suppose it depends on how big the shop is.

This

To be fair OP, I think on that occasion if it was known for a fact by all present that the thunder triggered it, I can understand them not wanting to argue with the storm which clearly wasn’t playing if it impacted the fire alarm 👀
Generally though, I do get simultaneously perplexed and annoyed by how relaxed some people are when the alarm goes off and it isn’t clear at all what the level of danger is. I’ve seen people texting on their way downstairs, even starting to go back upstairs (and blocking those coming down) when it goes off because apparently that means everything is ok, and it really annoys me! So I do understand.

This is unreal. Firefighters will have to put their own lives at risk for selfish twats like this. I'd tell them they can stay and burn.

As a thought-experiment, I tried putting other protected characteristics in the OP. Leaving aside the weird sentence construction, how would any of these have gone down?

"Guessing that from those who moaned at the staff and security were the gay side."

"Guessing that from those who moaned at the staff and security were the BAME side."

"Guessing that from those who moaned at the staff and security were the pregnant side."

"Guessing that from those who moaned at the staff and security were the Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Satanist side."

"Guessing that from those who moaned at the staff and security were the blind/deaf/amputee side."

"Guessing that from those who moaned at the staff and security were the married side."

"Guessing that from those who moaned at the staff and security were the trans side."

None looks good, on the whole.

Yes - we had to make some changes to the holiday let to comply with fire regulations which meant changing the door locks to keyless exit.

I then of course got a poor review from a guest who didn't feel safe because they couldn't use the (now disabled) key operated deadlock!

We had to evacuate when one of the ovens in the bakery caught on fire and customers just would not leave. It’s very annoying because we have to get them out and put ourselves at risk because they won’t leave their trolley. They had no idea if it was a real fire or a drill but were prepared to take that chance despite there being no one there to serve them on checkouts 🤦‍♀️

I was once in a restaurant when there was a massive leak coming from one of the pipes in the ceiling. Water started pouring into the restaurant and the poor manager didn't know what to do. He was a bit flustered and looked very young. Someone pointed out that the ceiling was peeling away on its own directly above our table, so my dining partner and I got up and moved away.

The number of people who sat doggedly at their tables as they didn't want to leave their meals. They were all just pretending it wasn't happening which was completely stupid.

Anyway, we left and went somewhere else for our meal, but it really struck me how determined people can be to just pretend there is no emergency when there actually is.

People often split up while shopping, I often see couples who shop together have one go off to get an item, or someone goes to the cigarette counter while and other is checking out the groceries, or a kid is left to choose a magazine while a parent is grabbing laundry conditioner, I imagine in a genuine crisis, the assembly points are useful for people to head to to find their loved ones so that you don’t have a load of frantic families trying to find each other in a car park.

I got soaked to the skin in a sudden thunderstorm in under a minute yesterday. I was struggling to see as all my spf washed down into my eyes. Just stuck out in the rain / hail for ten minutes. Then a half hour drive with the blowers on. I felt ill / utterly exhausted for the rest of the day and I’m in my 40s. I can imagine if you are frail it’d be best avoided if possible.

Perhaps stores should have a box of emergency ponchos and if they hsve to evacuate in the pissing rain they could be given to customers who needed one.