For scouts last night, we worked on the Emergency Preparedness merit badge. We discussed how to prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate or prevent kitchen fires and garages fires, food poisoning, avalanches, stranded vehicles (in deserts or blizzards), backcountry accidents, explosions, and various other emergencies. There was also a discussion of 72-hour kits and family evacuation plans. But the real scouting kicked in when it came time to plan to the mock disaster and troop mobilization plan. The mobilization involves assembling at the church with water, snacks and Nerf guns in order to combat the zombie apocalypse. Now I just need to find a few zombies...
This brings me to this morning at the office. You see, in our office, as in most offices, we have both emergency generators and emergency responders. Our biggest emergency generator kicked into gear yesterday, and no one realized it until this morning, when I noticed the emergency generator bouncing and spinning wildly out of control. Like a good scout, I had to take on the role of emergency responder. It was time to apply the emergency preparedness steps discussed last night. First, I had to respond by reviewing the misinterpreted e-mail that caused the emergency. Then explain to the emergency generator that if you read past the first line, you would realize that the e-mail states nearly the opposite of what you had been concerned about. Then to recover, I canceled various meetings scheduled in response to the emergency and contacted various parties to clarify the situation. Third, to mitigate or prevent this from happening again, I asked if there is any way to take away the emergency generator's e-mail access. (No, it wasn't possible.) Lastly, to prepare for the next time (because there will be a next time), I will need to bring my zombie apocalypse response kit to work. At least then I will have a snack and a Nerf gun.