Millenial Mentor

“No Ma’am. This is Not a Fire Drill.”

Posted on by millennialmentor

One of my favorite trending TikTok sounds right now is the gal doing her make-up while saying “No Ma’am. We work in marketing. This is not a fire drill.”

It really makes you think about what actually constitutes an “emergency.” Unless you are quite literally a first responder, you realize there are very few things in life that are actually an emergency. But we don’t treat work situations that way do we?

Recently, a fire alarm went off in a building with some of my employees. I ran out of my office and met several my colleagues, both leads and managers, at the location. Everyone had calmly evacuated by the time we arrived. 

There clearly was no fire. 

A fan blowing dust in the direction of one of the detectors had someone caused it to trigger. 

But it made me stop and think how we react when something that is labeled “alarming” comes to light. As leaders we can cause panic by how we react. 

We also can unintentionally waste our own time and resources by running toward something “alarming” that may be nothing at all. Sometimes the sense of concern is true and sometimes react that way because we think we should. We want others to see us “doing something.” Then we find out that the root of the problem was not near as complicated as we all thought.

Journal Prompt: When was the last time you overacted to something? Why did you read that way? Get curious about the feelings you had. What did that situation teach you? 

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