My husband and I have lived in a certain downtown condominium for nearly 3 years, and we have yet to hear a single concierge make a fire alarm announcement that sounds like they know what they are doing - much less like they know how to speak. I find this highly annoying. Take tonight's alarm at midnight:-> 12:00am - Dude leans on a warning buzzer for about 45 seconds, which is done to notify us of an upcoming intercom announcement. Different concierge hold it down for different lengths of time. Some to the point where you want to go downstairs and throttle them. It is a very loud, horrible sound, of which, 5 seconds or less would be more than sufficient.
->12:06am - Crackling and chewing sound (Dude was probably eating a sandwhich or something). Attentionattention (chomp, chomp slurrrp!) There is a, um, this is the concierge... ... speaking... ... Mumble, mumble mumble (chew chew gulp)... Fire department (more terrible mouth sounds)... notifiedstayin... ...yourunitsattentionattention (and repeat of above horrendous sounds).
For some reason the fire alarm in our building goes off up to several times a week. I'm sure Toronto Fire Services are not pleased. This means we are exposed to horrendous concierge Fire Alarm announcements on a regular basis and it pisses me off every time because they are always horrible like the one tonight.
Luckily, this time as my ears were assaulted once again, I devised a fool proof plan for them to prevent this from happening again.:
1. Have a pre-written blurb they can say and a time limit for how long they can hold the buzzer down. I suggest 5 seconds. If pushing the buzzer and saying the announcement is too complicated for one person, have one person be the official buzzer pusher and the other can do the announcement.
When doing the announcement, read the it off the paper. Pretend you are speaking to humans (who may or may not have been sleeping) - and try to sound professional. Easy peasy.
2. When hiring concierge, screen them first, by having them perform a test on their button pushing skills and ability to read off a piece of paper in a pleasant sounding manner. If they fail the timed button pushing exercise or the fire alarm announcement making test, send them on their merry way.
I'll have to suggest this to the management right away. I'm looking forward to getting my sleep back. Though I have a new problem now since I can hear Alex snoring in the bedroom.
2 comments:
Hey Ali!
Thank you for your wonderful comments. I appreciate it so much. I have your site Chick Adviser on my list of fav blogs! It's cool to see who's behind the reviews. And I loved your post about the fire alarms in your building - it's kinda weird but I think we live in the SAME building!!! The alarm goes off ALL the time and the concierge guys never handle it properly. I have a 9 month old too so it's not so fun. Anyways, keep in touch and maybe we'll see each other around!
Joy
Most definitely agreed!!! I work in a very tall office building in Chicago's Loop, and we have the same problem with the announcer for our building. If I can't understand if you want me to go to the 36th or 66th floor to get away from danger... THAT is a problem!
I can see the lawsuits mounting already.. godforbid something happens to our building and tenants are sent to the wrong floor, thus being hurt or worse!
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