PANIC!

Last night TFA hosted a really big event at the University of Pennsylvania, and the entire staff was on hand to help run it. I was one of the people who sat in the box office and took people's tickets as they arrived, and it was very exciting to sit behind glass in the special box office room and talk to people through the little microphone, just like I worked at Disney World or some other cool place that you need a ticket to get into.

Anyway, right under the counter where I was sitting there was a little piece of white plastic that you could flick back and forth. It seemed like it was just a partially broken piece of the counter itself, and since I like to fidget I sat there and flicked it in between people arriving. After I'd been there for about 15 minutes, a squad car with flashing lights pulled up and a policeman came running in yelling, "where's the box office?!" It turns out that little plastic switch was the "Call 911 Someone Is Holding Us Hostage" signal. Oops.

The policeman was actually pretty nice about it, since the switches (there was one at each seat) were totally unlabeled and actually at exactly the right height to get bumped by a knee. I was too mortified to fess up that I had been sitting there flicking mine the whole time, so I just played dumb and went along with the theory that someone (impossible to tell who!) had accidentally hit theirs.

In conclusion, if you are ever designing a box office or bank teller station, the emergency 911 button should be clearly labeled, and it should probably have some sort of plastic cover protecting it from fidgety idiots.