Rules That Were Supposed to Help But Ended up a Big Fail

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Smoke Signals

In my dorm, if you did something that triggered the smoke/fire alarm, you had to do a safety presentation for everyone on your floor. This was intended to deter pranksters from pulling the alarm.

A guy on our floor was making grilled cheese in the kitchenette, and burned it, which legitimately triggered the fire alarm. Afterward, he explained, assuming that since it had been a legitimate alarm and not a prank, he wouldn’t have to do a presentation. He was, of course, wrong.

So, the next Wednesday night, the entire floor assembled, and we were treated to a thirty-minute safety presentation on the dangers of grilled cheese sandwiches. It contained literally nothing about fire safety. It was all choking hazards and cholesterol.

Our RA was furious, but the student pointed out that the write-up that he’d been given just said “safety presentation.”

We didn’t get any more presentations after that.