I Refuse to Believe That This Building Is On Fire

Second, it’s not like it’s even necessarily a serious problem. Buildings have been on fire before. A lot of those didn’t suffer any serious damage and many of them are still standing. The White House was on fire once. The White House! You don’t see that being mentioned by the alarmists who run around saying things like, “Why aren’t you paying attention to the alarm?” and “Why aren’t you running to the stairs like everybody else!” Fires are just part of the cyclical nature of things. It’s only now, that there are people trying to sabotage this company and hurt our ability to compete with companies like that, that anybody’s even making a big deal about it.

Third, there’s no real evidence that the building’s on fire. Oh, sure, the temperature’s rising, but I spent some time clearing junk out of an un-insulated warehouse back in 78, and it was almost as hot then. In fact, I once touched a hot car in the middle of a parking lot, far from ANY building, and badly hurt myself. Rising temperatures, all the paper starting to give off smoke, this is not proof that the building is on fire. What do you call a cigarette? It’s made of paper and it gives off smoke! And that’s a trillion dollar a year industry, worldwide! How come you never hear that from the screaming woman running around in circles with flames shooting from the top of her head? As for the smoke coming out of the vents, I’ve been in the smoking lounges of major airports! I’m telling you, buddy, that was smoke!

You ask me, all this talk about the flames raging all the way to the fortieth floor and only a few minutes left is just a distraction about all the other things that keep this office from functioning smoothly. You never hear anybody talking about Myrna refusing to fill the pot after she takes the last the cup of coffee. Conveniently, you never hear anybody bitching about Jack always clocking out five minutes early. You never hear about Peter playing the music in his office too loud. Those are the big issues. But let somebody mention fire once, send men in rubber suits racing between the cubicles in gas masks, and let the panic begin! Before we go running around willy-nilly, shouldn’t be confirm that it’s not just our competitors at Amalgamated spreading baseless rumors to harm our productivity in the marketplace?

The firemen? You’re forgetting the fact that they’re paid to fight fires. It’s their job. They have a vested interest in coming in here and breaking up our furniture with axes. If there’s no fire, they’re out of a job. Of COURSE they’d say there’s a fire. What do you expect them to say?

It seems to me that we never had a proper debate about this. The alarms could have been wrong. The people who saw Enid being dragged out of here on a stretcher could have been responding to rumors. The collapsing walls could have some other cause. The live footage from the news helicopters could be fear-mongering. You know what we need? I know I already disputed the sirens, and the order to evacuate, and the three separate groups of firefighters who came through here already – and, tellingly, RESORTED TO AD HOMINEM ARGUMENTS when I said I had the right to my opinion and was staying put – but if they want me to believe there’s anything to this, they will sit down and give the issue the benefit of an open debate. One of me versus one representative of whichever one of the ten different engine companies which are clustered around this building right now, fueling the hysteria. I’ll take him on. He can tell me that all their engineering models have the building ten minutes from collapse and I can ask him the hard questions about who’s really paying his salary, what his real agenda is, and whether he even believes in the building anyway. When he says, “To hell with this, we’re all bugging out,” you’ll all know that they’re too afraid to answer the hard questions.

Until then, I am staying put.