Smoke Alarm

They have made our department quite different from what it was in the past. The people are the same, and the work done is the same, but the building is different. One example is the smoke alarms everywhere. There are those smart-looking white square boxes emitting red flashes periodically. They look quite impressive. We were in the middle of a maternal mortality audit (not another one, the same one I wrote about last time) when there was a persistent faint siren-like noise. I put my ear close to the laptop and the LCD projector, but the noise was not coming from either of the two. We went on with the meeting. The next day my Associate Professor told me that the noise was the smoke alarm. “What caused it to go off?” I asked. “I don’t know.” “Does anybody know what set off the alarm?” I asked. No one knew. “Perhaps they were testing it” I said. “They should tell us if they test it. Or there can be panic.” That was right. But these people are known to do wrong things by choice too. “Perhaps some worker took a smoke break.” “They are not allowed to smoke by the contractor.” “Perhaps our OT servant smoked. Their room used to be a smoke room before repair and renovation.” That was probably the right reason, but my people were not satisfied. “Perhaps it was our Profess XX XXXX’s perfume” I said. The whole second floor corridor was thick with that musk just before the meeting. I must warn against its use.” They seemed to like that one.