In everyday life, people respond if they hear an alarm. If you’re in a hotel and the fire alarm sounds, you’re going to at least check if something’s amiss. It’s what we’re trained to do from childhood. But if an alarm goes off at the airport, no one seems to care.
For example, we were recently at Atlanta Airport, sitting at one of the terminal food courts. Since we didn’t have lounge access, it was the best place to get work done.
During our stay, a door alarm sounded. It was a constant loud buzzing sound that went on for seemingly forever.
The strange thing was that no one seemed to care. There were no security guards running to see if someone was trying to get into a secure area of the airport. In fact, the alarm rang for over 10 minutes.
It got to the point where Sharon asked if I wanted to move. I told her that I had everything situated and it would be a pain to go anywhere else. I had already tuned out the noise the same as I ignore a crying baby on a plane.
Shortly after that, several airport employees arrived and reset the alarm. There was no urgency to see what triggered the alarm or to see if the airport was in danger. The sole purpose of the visit was to turn off the alarm.
This leads to the question of why is the door alarmed. If there is no need to secure the door, then why is it alarmed? But if the door does lead to a restricted area, shouldn’t there be some urgency if an unauthorized person tries to enter the area?
Maybe I’m overthinking this. I should act oblivious, like the people drinking at the Truly Seltzer bar that was right next to the door alarm that was making all the noise. Alarmed doors are a nuisance not to be worried about. My job is to ignore the alarm as if it was someone else’s problem to turn it off.
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