Friday, October 3, 2008
Playing with fire (alarms)
There are certain things in life that you pray to have occur as a child in school and pray to avoid as an adult, especially when you’re a Tour Professional on the road.
- Getting sick enough to remove yourself from the day’s activities
- Pizza for lunch
- Fire alarms
As I wind down my fifth full season on the road, I knew a hotel fire alarm was bound to happen to me at some point. And, let’s face it, there is never a good time to have a fire alarm ring during a tour. When ranking “worst times” on the “What’s the Best Time to Have a Fire Alarm” list, just after “waking your passengers at an ungodly hour,” the second-worst time has to be “just after your passengers sit down to dinner.”
On my last tour it was 6:30 PM, and we were staying on Stratton Mountain, Vermont. I was helping my driver finish up the cleaning of our coach at day’s end, something I like to do to unwind from our being “on” with our passengers while also spending some quality time getting to know my driver a bit better. After hearing some commotion outside the coach, we noticed a large crowd forming just outside the main door to the hotel. Although perplexed at first, we soon heard the incessant ringing of the hotel’s fire alarm. Things quickly moved from bad to worse.
Although there was no actual fire, a full set of sprinklers sprayed fire retardant across the entire kitchen, and there was no way to serve what was already cooked or cook what was temporarily raw. The restaurant had to shut down, and after a long day of riding from Mystic, Connecticut, through Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and onto Vermont, our passengers were hungry and tired. Despite wanting to disappear into the coach’s floorboards, I knew my job was to get some information about the situation and reassure all of the passengers we were going to be OK.
Now, I have had colleagues who, in similar situations, quickly recognized it was a false alarm and decided to remain out of sight. However, my belief is your passengers need to see their leader, whether its a false alarm or not. Surely you should expect to hear a chorus of complaints from them, but it’s important not to take the comments personally. Usually your appearance alone is enough to convince your passengers you are involved in solving the problem and getting them pertinent information.
I headed past the first wave of complaints to make it to the front desk to get an update. A declaration had already been made that the alarms were signaling a fire that did not exist, so that was a real positive. My concern quickly turned to where we could get the passengers to for their dinner, and then what we could expect as far as our hotel breakfast, since I knew that would be the passenger’s next question.
Since all those in the restaurant were unable to finish or continue, I wanted to be sure they saw me there, working to solve the problem. I situated myself out front, readily exchanging possible scenarios which lead to the alarm with a small group which suddenly doubled as the local fire advisory board (and who also bore a striking resemblance to a few of my passengers). As we exchanged “theories” as to why the alarm went off, I also assisted the disgruntled passengers with information on the van shuttle taking many to nearby restaurants, as well what may happen in the morning concerning our breakfast in the same restaurant. The idea was to be visible, be as informative as possible, and listen to them complain without offering any real replies other than my apologies it happened at all.
When I got back to my room after my own dinner, I collapsed with exhaustion after having experienced an unnecessary but “that’s life” experience to end the day, and with the hopes for a better tomorrow. And, as I wrote earlier, I felt lucky the alarm didn’t ring in the middle of the night.
I slept soundly until my 5:20 AM wake-up call startled me into our new day.
Three minutes later ... the fire alarm awakened the rest of the group.
And there was nowhere to hide.