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The six rules of fire drills
消防演习的六大规则
Please display this somewhere in your office where no one will read it. Thank you.
请把本文张贴在办公室里没有人会看到的地方。谢谢。
Rule 1. The fire drill must never feel useful.
规则1。消防演习绝不能让人觉得有用。
It may be a proven way to help save people’s lives, to say nothing of being a legal requirement in many workplaces.
消防演习可能是一种能救命的方式，况且在许多工作场所进行消防演习是一项法律要求。
But it is important that people experience the exercise only as an inconvenience.
但重要的是让人们只能体验到这种演习中的不方便之处。
The drill should take place when people are up against a deadline.
演习应该在人们赶任务的时候进行。
It must not be timed to coincide with a long meeting, when it might come as a bit of a relief.
一定不能在开长时间会议的时候进行，这时候的演习会让人们松一口气。
Ideally, it should be pouring with rain.
理想情况下，应该是下着倾盆大雨。
The drill can be counted a success only if enough people are rolling their eyes and muttering to themselves.
只有当足够多的人翻白眼并嘟嘟囔囔时，演习才算成功。
(The sixth rule is essential to achieving this outcome, too.)
(第六条规则对于实现这一结果也很关键。)
Rule 2. Remember that the drill is not really a drill but an exercise in begrudging consensus.
规则2。记住，演习并不是真正的消防演习，而是对不愿意达成一致意见进行练习。
When the alarm sounds, people must never just get up and leave.
当警报响起时，人们绝对不能站起来离开。
They must first satisfy themselves that this is not a mistake.
他们必须首先让自己确定警报不是误响。
Someone might have pressed the wrong button; that voice might yet drone “This is a test” and for once people will feel grateful.
可能有人按错了按钮，警报声随后可能会有“这是测试”的低沉声音，然后人们就会终于有一次满怀感激。
They must then see other employees getting ready to leave.
然后，他们必须看到其他员工准备离开。
This stage involves people bobbing up and down at their desks like demented meerkats to see what their colleagues are doing.
在这个阶段，人们需要像发疯的狐獴一样在办公桌前站起又坐下，看看同事在做什么。
When it is clear that this is indeed a drill, people must then spend inordinate amounts of time deciding what things to take with them.
当明确这确实是一次演习时，人们必须花费过多的时间来决定要带什么东西走。
What’s the weather like?
外面天气怎么样？
Should they take the laptop?
应该带上笔记本电脑吗？
Where did they put their reusable coffee flask?
他们把可重复使用的咖啡杯放在哪里了？
Should they pack a suitcase?
应该收拾行李箱吗？
The one thing they must not have as they leave is any sense of urgency.
离开时绝对不能有的一样东西就是紧迫感。
Rule 3. This stage of the drill is when the fire wardens must show themselves.
规则3。演习的这一阶段是消防员必须现身的时候。
Only the wardens can accelerate the speed of departure from the building.
只有消防员能让人们快点离开大楼。
This secretive group is the Opus Dei of the office but with a bit less of the fervour or sense of menace.
这个神秘的组织就像办公室里的主业会，但没有主业会那么狂热或具有危险的感觉。（注：现实中的主业会是一个天主教社团，电影《达芬奇密码》中的主业会是一个让教士进行残忍苦修的暗杀组织。）
The fire wardens have often been in the role for years; no one knows how they got the job or how to apply.
消防员往往担任这一职务多年，没有人知道他们是如何得到这份工作或如何申请这份工作的。
They hide in plain sight: there may well be sepia photos of their younger selves on the office wall, next to an even more obscure sect known only as the “first-aiders”.
他们在光天化日之下也隐而不现：办公室墙上很可能有他们年轻时的深褐色照片，旁边是一个更鲜为人知的“教派”，只知道名字是“急救员”。
The wardens reveal themselves during a drill by putting on high-visibility jackets, which instantly confer on them a mysterious authority.
消防员们在演习中穿上很显眼的外套并现身，这外套立即赋予他们一种神秘的权威感。
The cabal is never seen together at other times.
在其他时间，人们从来没看到过这个密谋团体集体出现。
Rule 4. The fire drill will produce a sense of belonging.
规则4。消防演习将带来一种归属感。
That is because a drill will suddenly expose you to everyone who works in your building.
这是因为演习会突然让你接触到在你所在的大楼里工作的所有人。
In the normal course of events, you might briefly share a lift with people from other companies or other departments.
在正常情况下，你可能会短暂地与其他公司或其他部门的人乘同一部电梯。
You might glimpse their offices as the doors open and close and think how soulless they look.
在开门关门的间隙你可能会瞥见他们的办公室，并想着他们看起来好像没有灵魂一样。
(They will think the same of yours.)
（他们也会对你有同样的看法。）
But you never realise how outnumbered you are.
但你永远不会意识到你是多么寡不敌众。
In a drill, however, strangers surround you.
然而，在演习中，你被陌生人包围。
Stairwells fill with people, most of them also weighed down by coats, laptops and reusable coffee flasks.
楼梯间挤满了人，他们中的大多数也被外套、笔记本电脑和可重复使用的咖啡杯压得走不动路。
They spiral down below you on the way out and form long queues by the lifts on the way back.
在出去的路上他们在你的脚下呈螺旋式下楼，在回来的路上他们在电梯旁排成长长的队伍。
You will suddenly feel grateful for the comfort of any recognisable face.
突然看到一张认识的面孔所带来的安慰会让你顿时感到谢天谢地。
You spot someone from legal you think may be called Keith and say hello.
你看到了法务部的一个人，你觉得那个人好像叫基思，并打了个招呼。
You have never given him any thought before; in this moment of grave non-peril he is like family.
之前你从来没有注意过他，在这个严峻但不危险的关头，他就像家人一样亲切。
Rule 5. The assembly area is not so much a designated spot as a place of people’s choosing within a ten-minute walk of your building.
规则5。集合区域与其说是一个指定的地点，不如说是人们在离大楼步行10分钟的范围内自行选择的地方。
Your employer might have specified a place for employees to gather.
你的雇主可能已经指定了一个地方，让员工在那里集合。
They may have given it militaristic names like the “primary muster point” or the “tertiary evacuation zone”.
他们可能给这个地方起了一个带有军事色彩的名字，比如“主要集结点”或“第三疏散区”。
No one else will have the faintest idea where it is.
除了他们之外，其他人根本不知道这个地方在哪里。
A clump of people will mill about as close to the site of the notional blaze as possible.
一群人会转悠到离假设的火灾地点尽可能近的地方去。
Another group will scatter in various directions in search of a coffee or an early lunch.
另一群人会分散前往不同的方向，去买咖啡或早点吃午饭。
If they walk purposefully enough, other people will assume they know where the assembly area is and follow them.
如果他们走路的样子看起来足够胸有成竹，其他人就会认为他们知道集合区在哪里，并跟着他们走。
As a result most of the office may accidentally end up at Starbucks.
结果，办公室的大部分人可能会意外汇集在星巴克。
Rule 6. Confusingly also known as the first and second rules of fire drill, you must never talk about fire drill.
规则6。第六条规则也被费解地称为消防演习的第一和第二条规则，即你永远不能谈论消防演习。
At some point word will spread that the drill is over and people will start to drift back to the office.
在某个时候，会有消息传开，说演习结束了，然后人们会开始陆续回到办公室。
Once they have returned to their desks, everyone must act as though the whole thing never happened.
一旦他们回到自己的办公桌前，每个人都必须表现得好像整件事从未发生过一样。
There must never be any reference to how it went or whether any safety lessons were learned.
决不能提到演习是如何进行的，或者人们是否吸取了安全教训。
The fire wardens must fold away their high-viz jackets and settle back into the shadows.
消防员必须收起他们的显眼外套，并重新回到阴影中。
The work you were doing must simply be picked up where it was left.
你之前正在做的工作必须从打断的地方继续做。
You will not speak to Keith from legal again.
你不会再和法务部的基思说话了。
But you do know not to use the lifts if there is a real emergency.
但你知道，如果真的有紧急情况，不能坐电梯。
