[Ngisayakubangitanda]

I work security for a factory and part of my job is being in charge of all the alarm systems (doors, fire, chemicals, etc.). As it can be expected, we have certain procedures for different alarms and so on and so forth.

Well, our fire system is junk. It's got more band-aids on it than a Type III rig. And it seems like every week something goes wonky and we'll have alarms going off for no reason. And they will be continuous. So we have to call the alarm company to do a rush service order, but the tech only ever comes for ten minutes and puts yet another band-aid on the system. Repeat one week later.

A normal alarm I can deal with. Silence the alarm, follow procedure. But I cannot even begin to explain the rage I get when we get another malfunction and have that blasted alarm going off continuously for my entire eight-hour shift, with the alarm company saying only, "The tech is on his way." And the Powers That Be in the plant itself couldn't care less because they don't hear it and they don't deal with it.

But to listen to it going off over...and over...and over...I broke my hand putting it through the printer next to the panel because I was still smart enough to consider that I didn't want to be electrocuted by putting my hand through the panel itself. (We needed a new printer anyway.)

This job is probably the best I've ever had, not least because my supervisor is very sympathetic and he sticks his neck out for all of us guards time and again. But the alarms...by themselves are bad enough but they are so reminisce of things from my past and that's where the rage comes from.

I can't wear earplugs and most of my shifts are solo shifts. And trying to deal with people while having those alarms in the background...with the people often saying things like, "Wow, that's loud." or "That must be annoying." and "When are they going to fix that?" and most especially "Shouldn't you do something about that?" I want to just rip their throats out like "No kidding? I hadn't noticed! You want to do my job? Here, sit here for the next eight hours and tell me how you feel then!"

[ManOfConstantSorrow]

The alarms are bad, but perhaps the rage is most worrying. Rage can lead us to do things we are sorry about later. I hope you can find a way to deal with this.

[Perna]

Your supervisor isn't able to do anything with management, get them to buy a new system? Does not sound very safe, you all's job, to have it crying wolf all the time. I'd point out to someone that you will get complacent and be so busy turning off broken alarms that you won't be able to pay attention to the real ones.

[Ngisayakubangitanda]

Originally Posted by Perna

Your supervisor isn't able to do anything with management, get them to buy a new system? Does not sound very safe, you all's job, to have it crying wolf all the time. I'd point out to someone that you will get complacent and be so busy turning off broken alarms that you won't be able to pay attention to the real ones.

Aye, and every two weeks when the supervisors go in for meetings with the Powers That Be, those issues get brought up. But nothing is ever done. "Oh, yeah, yeah, we'll get it fixed." So they call the alarm company, have a tiff, but nothing changes.

And we are not actually employed necessarily by the factory; we are a 3rd party contract security agency (don't do it; run from these jobs).