THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

GreyQueen wrote: »

PP, I've heard of preppers who've had some banknotes in an old envelope amidist a lot of other papery carp in their car's glove box, and this has been missed even when the car was broken into and was missed even when the box was rifled. Obvs, if they offski with the whole motor that's not going to be of any benefit.

DigForVictory, when I walk around my very large workplace, if I'm going into a meeting or even to visit the bathroom, I take my shoulderbag with me. I was once enthroned, so to speak, when a fire alarm went off and I had to exit our building far from our own department. Made me think how s****d I would have been if it hadn't been a drill, with my flat's keys, wallet and phone all in a bag under my desk.

If there was an emergency here, being one of the LA's frontline team, I would be working to help serve the public, unless I was injured in such as way as to make it impossible. I would regard it as my duty to be at my post; there ain't that many of us who can work the big-a$$ telephony system, after all.:rotfl:

Popped in to check you were alright, GQ (take it as a compliment that you are so memorable ).

I always, always have my bag with me at school. Come hell or high water, I've got that small bag with keys, phone, bankcard and a few random bits of tut (plus ciggies and lighter because I'm stoopid like that) pretty much attached to my person, along with a cardie. It means that when the fire alarms go off, as they did every day for a few months - until they discovered which little oik was responsible, got him taken off by the police, expelled and his parents threatened with a bill for the fire brigade charges, and his little friends decided that they weren't going to risk it anymore - I was never the person freezing my wotsits off in the rain, unable to get to my phone or potentially stranded.



We've just had notice of a Lockdown procedure. I've read it, obviously, and the holes in it are glaring - turn off computer screens and whiteboards, but communication only issued through email and play the kids videos to keep them occupied whilst maintained absolute silence from the switched off computers and whiteboards, take a register and email it to the official email, which is being monitored by some poor so and so who isn't allowed to follow the procedures and turn their screen off, make the kids be silent but continue lessons, continue lessons but lock yourselves in rooms with the kids, lock yourselves in your rooms when the doors don't lock from the inside, lock yourself and up to 36 kids in an office that barely holds 3 people, close blinds that don't exist but don't go anywhere near the windows to do so, don't sit near the windows or the walls because bullets go through walls; oh, and get a box and collect all the kids' phones in so they can't phone their mums - whilst the kids will be screaming blue murder that they need their phones....and don't tell them what is happening whilst ensuring they fully co-operate when they're teenagers, not 6 year olds, and have to know the reasons for everything if they aren't to throw a massive strop every single time.

The best bit? The alarm is sounded by the person in reception, who has to fetch an airhorn from a locked cupboard, leave her desk, walk past the glass doors, through one of the blocks into the open air, sound the horn and then go and find somewhere to hide as she doesn't have a key for anywhere. I can see it now 'Excuse me, man with a machete and explosive belt/samurai sword, would you mind not killing me or anybody else for a moment whilst I go and alert half the school to your presence? Thank you, just a moment more whilst I log into the lockdown email and tell everybody why I've sounded the airhorn and let the other half of the school that is out of range of the airhorn that you're here for the first time. OK, you can murder me now'.

Would be interesting to see how the notification system works with the power supply off. Can't wait for the expected drill for this - it'll be carnage.


And this is a place where they can't get the external PA system to work - despite my asking them 6 months ago if they'd changed the battery in the radio microphone and receiver unit.




Lovely bloke very helpfully 'unpacked that stuff you'd forgotten about in a bag and put it away for you' a couple of weeks ago. Very gently explained (again) that it's an emergency bag of things if there's a gas leak and his job would be to retrieve one cat and exit the house, whilst I grabbed the other. He's one of life's worriers, so I didn't bother explaining it in full. But it's repacked and hung over the bannister.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

DigForVictory wrote: »

Totally not having the handbag software installed, how do you recommend carrying anything bigger than my phone (eg carkeys) around the office? I do get away with murder sartorially speaking but a bumbag is not on, although a belt mounted to leg tie toolkit type pack might justabout be coped with. Please may suggestions be accompanied by weblinks?!

Thinking hard, I supposed I could carry my carkey in my hair, or even alongside my locket on my necklace but strewth the thigh-kit would be easier.

Square/Dvd sized fabric bag with a long strap to go over your head?

Karmacat

JoJo, what an utterly horrendous mess! They really are just going through the motions, parroting things

DfV - I don't quite understand the question, a small clutch bag could contain keys, phone, purse and water?

mardatha

Things like this have brought down governments before.. it really exposes how cynical and downright useless our politicians today are. (that doesn't sound like good grammar, but I am just up!)

DigForVictory

I managed to get through the usual female upbringing without ever wearing/carrying a handbag. Rucksack, yes, full size Cello even, but small female thing you can put down & forget? No. Result, if I can put it down & forget it, I do. (Hence my utter fascination with phone as it does loads but doesn't trigger the put-down-&-oh circuitry.)
Now I wear clothes with pockets so my phone is always bodycarried (set on silent in meetings but I can feel it, but the next piece of kit I want are my carkeys (it being the physical repository of all bugout gear as well as method of moving bodies) and I was wondering of there's any suitable for the office analogue of this. Not least as the presumption is that women carry bags & in my case that just doesn't work.
I may end up figuring a hairstick that I can clip my carkey into but that just requires me to trust hair, pins etc to hold the blighter in place. Can't go on the lanyard - we have massive issues with being seen in public with those already.

Jojo - get 'em to hold a drill & bag a ringside seat on the washup.... Then invite the school children to tell you how they'd like you to do it. Explain the requirements adults are supposed to observe, explain the risks you are required to try to protect them from (not all walls are created equal!) and let them apply their intelligence and/or survival instincts to the problem. With a Repeated Reminder that going for a dramatic set piece will result in a major local news headline, a very pretty touching And Unnecessary funeral & not much else.

Our Scouts promptly went into wide game mode, silently snapchatting locations while one patrol lugged the wheelchair user off to the gas cylinder shed, again using snapchat to coordinate distractions. (I wouldn't be my choice of hiding place but it's near enough, unobtrusive & solidly locked.) I was punctiliously careful not to ask how any of them proposed to get through the fencing (I reminded them it exists & it thought to be complete...) and asked if they'd checked that the scout's family who live next the park were ready to host 25 stressed scouts. As if they were, I was prepared to write it up as formal policy, but not until I'd spoken to both parents.
If you would protect the young, involve them. As for taking their toys off them, heck no, Make Full Use!

nuatha

DigForVictory wrote: »

Now I wear clothes with pockets so my phone is always bodycarried (set on silent in meetings but I can feel it, but the next piece of kit I want are my carkeys (it being the physical repository of all bugout gear as well as method of moving bodies) and I was wondering of there's any suitable for the office analogue of this. Not least as the presumption is that women carry bags & in my case that just doesn't work.

I know a couple of people who use something close to this which has the "advantage" of not looking too military.

Karmacat

Would this be any good? Or too big?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/ENKNIGHT-Crossbody-Travel-Shoulder-handbags/dp/B01N9P1JIN/ref=sr_1_4?s=shoes&ie=UTF8&qid=1497699425&sr=1-4&nodeID=1769564031&psd=1&keywords=women%27s%2Bbag&th=1

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

DigForVictory wrote: »

I managed to get through the usual female upbringing without ever wearing/carrying a handbag. Rucksack, yes, full size Cello even, but small female thing you can put down & forget? No. Result, if I can put it down & forget it, I do. (Hence my utter fascination with phone as it does loads but doesn't trigger the put-down-&-oh circuitry.)
Now I wear clothes with pockets so my phone is always bodycarried (set on silent in meetings but I can feel it, but the next piece of kit I want are my carkeys (it being the physical repository of all bugout gear as well as method of moving bodies) and I was wondering of there's any suitable for the office analogue of this. Not least as the presumption is that women carry bags & in my case that just doesn't work.
I may end up figuring a hairstick that I can clip my carkey into but that just requires me to trust hair, pins etc to hold the blighter in place. Can't go on the lanyard - we have massive issues with being seen in public with those already.

Jojo - get 'em to hold a drill & bag a ringside seat on the washup.... Then invite the school children to tell you how they'd like you to do it. Explain the requirements adults are supposed to observe, explain the risks you are required to try to protect them from (not all walls are created equal!) and let them apply their intelligence and/or survival instincts to the problem. With a Repeated Reminder that going for a dramatic set piece will result in a major local news headline, a very pretty touching And Unnecessary funeral & not much else.

Our Scouts promptly went into wide game mode, silently snapchatting locations while one patrol lugged the wheelchair user off to the gas cylinder shed, again using snapchat to coordinate distractions. (I wouldn't be my choice of hiding place but it's near enough, unobtrusive & solidly locked.) I was punctiliously careful not to ask how any of them proposed to get through the fencing (I reminded them it exists & it thought to be complete...) and asked if they'd checked that the scout's family who live next the park were ready to host 25 stressed scouts. As if they were, I was prepared to write it up as formal policy, but not until I'd spoken to both parents.
If you would protect the young, involve them. As for taking their toys off them, heck no, Make Full Use!

Sounds ideal, but I am a lowly minion who is deemed not to be of sufficient Importance to have any opinion or useful information in such matters, never mind the teenagers, who seem to be generally regarded as being mere infants by Those Who Must Be Obeyed.

The trouble is that whilst myself and a large proportion of the students have grown up in less than salubrious areas, those On High have never been faced with somebody wielding a weapon, used their Spider Sense to know to get out of an area, had to evade National Front mobs, gangs intent on robbery/violence on the grounds of race/sexual orientation/appearance or postcode - or sat at home in the dark whilst a riot went on outside their windows, co-ordinating with friends for escape routes and safe places. I have and the kids have.

During the riots a few years back, whilst Sky News was broadcasting to all and sundry that the area was perfect for a spot of looting and arson, we were using Twitter to work out clear routes away and sort out safe havens for people that would otherwise have been entirely unaware that anything was happening before thick, choking, toxic smoke and flames were spreading towards people's homes.

Others were alerted to there being 'something' going on long before any disorder started - as I was already on my way home because it was obvious there was an atmosphere, a friend was being messaged by his ex, a police officer, telling him to get home - and even now, the final report lies blatantly about the time of the first signs of trouble - I was heading home by midday, having noticed the feeling and then seen far more police than usual hanging around outside the posh shops, my friend was messaged by 1.30pm and the report says there was no warning at all and gatherings only started at about 5. They're lying, plain and simple. They knew from before midday but did nothing other than start protecting the posh shops, allowing people to travel and congregate on the outskirts where, had they placed blocks at just 5 locations, the vast majority would have been unable to join the few already there.

Even with the most recent disasters and attacks, mobile phones have been invaluable in finding people, alerting them to the situation in the first place (not just in Grenfell Tower, there was another flat fire the day after and the only reason anybody was alerted to it in the block - the fire alarms again didn't work, despite alarms in the next building along going off - was that friends passing by spotted the smoke and texted them), finding shelter and avoiding walking/running into harm's way.

I think the worst idea is to insist on confiscating everybody's phones when you need them to be quiet and compliant, if nothing else because if the Lockdown were to be due to something happening in town, parents would be trying to contact their children - and staff wouldn't be able to switch them to silent if anybody's forgotten to do so before handing them in, then frantically rummaging through a tub of 30+ phones to find the ones going off, finding out who owns one of 9 identical ones, entering the code or using their thumbprint to access it and then work out how to use the volume settings or switch it off.


As I have not been blessed with a cossetted, idyllic upbringing in a naice house with naice parents and a naice school, I have more in common with students than 99% of the staff. I think they'd be likely to listen to me precisely because of that. And I them. I also happen to have a number of locations around the site where I know the structure or topography instantly renders one invisible/makes escape from the site unobserved a simple task, as do the students. They are rather useful for the purposes of avoiding Management/Maths [delete as applicable].


Going back to the bag situation, I don't like the things either (I'd far rather carry my bass case than some girly frippery) - but a small bag as I described sits unobtrusively on the hip and can be forgotten about. The only other thing I could suggest is wearing trousers with belt loops and attaching one's keys to a fine choke chain, attached to the belt loop with a lead clip.

The reason I started using the bag was that my ample proportions make purchasing office appropriate trousers with belt loops too expensive when the usual outcome for the day is being covered with paint, dust, solvents or fabric being torn when clambering around underneath desks or the stage, so when the last pair wore out, I wore jeans - until On High complained it's not professional to be seen crawling around on the floor in anything other than formal trousers - I bought some silly cheap things online which don't have belt loops, but look the part.


All I can do when faced with such obtuseness is take a deep breath and adopt a superficial air of compliance, whilst planning silently to do what is most sensible in the event of SHTF.

thriftwizard

On High complained it's not professional to be seen crawling around on the floor in anything other than formal trousers

Hahaha! Reminds me of my days long ago computing in Wh!tehall... designing & installing early computer networks, and fairly often having to check cables etc., crawling under desks and also standing on them to check the wires going up through the ceilings. Only my management could try to insist on "ladylike" workwear, i.e. short skirt & high heels, to do this in! And all the while, people sticking their heads around the door, asking to speak to a computer "guy", totally baffled to be faced with this person of the - ahem - female persuasion... happy days :eek: Which is probably why I'm a market trader now, and can wear whatever I want!

GreyQueen

Morning all, back from the allotment (08.00 start) because it's very very hot. Heck, this city was like an oven when I came home from the lottie just before 22.00 last night. Close to 30c atm, so I have retreated indoors and am lurking behind drawn curtains with a cool drink.

Re bags, I have a cross-body bag with a flattish profile. I am also absentminded and cannot be trusted with any other style of 'handbag' other than the kind you wear. It sits under my desk and is slung on whenever I go to another part of our large building, even if it's just to the loos.

No one, and I mean no one, management or fellow minion, has ever questioned this habit. Nor have I ever seen any raised eyebrows, it's just something I do and I do it all the time and therefore it has acquired a degree of invisibility. Of course, I am a middle-aged woman and therefore technical invisible anyway (loving every minute of that freedon, believe you me ).

Lovely to 'see' you again, JoJo the Tightfisted. There are so many fab usernames on these boards but I've always thought yours was one of the best out there.

Grinning in recognition about management antics vs RL realities. I also grew up in a less-than-salubrious neighbourhood and have lived in even worse places. Shoebox Towers is known clean across the region in policing circles as one of THOSE places. You ring in and give 'em your postcode and tell them there's a fight going on and they come down here mob-handed as they know it'll be a major fight as piffling ones will just cause eye-rolling and grumbles and tellies to be turned up.

Righty, will shortly be enjoying a cool bath and a restful rest of the day, at least until evening, when I might possible toddle off to the allotment again to sling some water over the curcubits.

I have a bed sown with a wide variety of squash plants, courgettes of varying hues and misc pumpkins, some of which I grew myself, some of which were donated by pals. I haven't a clue which are which until they set fruit, so the random conglomeration is just 'curcubits' until proven otherwise.