If you think you’ve had a crazy work day, it’s probably nothing compared to what the person who wrote this story experienced. He was just doing his job when the fire alarm went off, and this was not a false alarm.

To make it even worse, the fire was in the server room!

What follows is a tale of the IT department trying to save the servers, but can they do it despite fire, water and the help of the fire department?

Keep reading for the whole story.

Do not call unless the building is on fire. So about that…

For the past month I have been off of my normal duties as we set up a new office building for the support staff.

We are all getting our own building with zero executives or anyone else that is not part of networking or IT. (So much joy right now. So much joy.)

Last month we had some excellent excitement brought on by idiocy redefined. But we will come to that later.

What’s going on?

It was a normal Wednesday morning. I was busy setting up phone and desktop systems for users techs in the new building.

I had just finished wiring up a docking station into the desk and setting up the phone when suddenly the lights flickered. Then there was an audible pop followed by the power going out.

I stand up and tell everyone to remain where they are as I walk to the server room.

Since we had no power the doors were forced open by the safety systems and I walked in only to suddenly clutch my left ear in pain as the fire alarm went off about 1 foot from my head.

Yikes! This is bad!

I walked into the server room to see smoke and the server guys motioning me to come in desperately.

One of the racks had a fire in the back of a blade server. Not a blown cap or fried wires, a full on fire in the back of it.

We had 3 server racks set up so far. The first two were hurriedly unhooked and pulled away as the rest of us rushed to take 7 1u server blades out of the rack and put them onto carts.

I pulled out two myself when I heard the sound of the fire suppression system going off.

He had a question.

$ME = William Riker

$SG = Server guy. Or Geordi La Forge

I hear the fire suppressors going off and turn to one of the server guys.

$Me – Are those water sprinklers?

He was outta there!

$SG – No thats a halon suppression system.

$ME – Was already running out the door full sprint the instant the word Halon was spoke.

The rest of the server guys soon followed me out of the building where we all gathered in the parking lot.

I know some people say Halon is perfectly safe to be around, but I just did not want to take that chance so I bolted the instant I heard the word Halon.

The fire department showed up.

I know I made it sound like the room was filled with smoke and that there was a raging fire. Truth is the fire was small and there was only a small amount of smoke.

This would soon change.

The fire alarm sent an automatic signal to the nearby fire station. Took then 3 minutes to show up.

We sent them in and warned them that the halon went off. They donned gas masks and walked in to set up fans to blow everything out.

They accessed the damage.

This is not the end of the story.

About 10 minutes after we were given the all clear to come in, we started taking inventory of what was and was not ruined.

Turns out a power surge had occurred in one of the servers and caught fire the instant the rack was turned on. The server and the one above it were ruined.

We were able to save the hard drives but just about everything else was destroyed.

Not again!

The firefighters were just about to leave when suddenly the power flickered off again.

This time it would not turn back on.

One of the server guys noticed smoke coming from behind a cabinet.

A firefighter opened it to find a fuse box. Yes. A fuse box in a building with breaker boxes that was still wired up and just happened to have about 15 cents worth of pennies jammed in it.

This is crazy!

No this is not a lie.

We actually found an old fuse box with pennies shoved in it in a corporate location which was recently updated to modern standards.

The firefighters noticed the wall was very hot. Too hot to the touch and told everyone to leave as we heard an ax slam into the wall.

As we were exiting the building the sprinklers went off. Welp there goes two weeks worth of hard work wiring desks.

He made a call.

I get in my car with one of the server guys, we carpooled, and call my boss’s boss. The EVPIT. Or the executive vice president of IT and technology. (Yes that’s his actual title.)

$EVP = President Dugan (Red alert 2)

$EVP – IF you are calling me on my vacation then the building better be on fire.

$ME – Soooo About that…

$EVP – What?

The VP instantly knows this is bad.

$ME – So apparently the building had an old fuse box in it.

$EVP – Ooooh god.

$ME – And some idiot shoved a bunch of pennies in the fuse box.

$EVP – How bad is it?

About this time a second tanker pulled up and a second hose was brought in to the building.

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Time to loop in the supervisor.

$me – Not too sure yet. But my best guess is a total loss.

$EVP – Call your direct supervisor the head of IT. I will be there Monday.

I called my boss and he told me to just go home as soon as the firefighters give the OK.

Thursday and Friday of that week no one was at the building. $EVP had given orders for everyone to stay out of it until the damage could be assessed.

They accessed the new damage.

Monday of that week.

The EVP, myself, supervisor, and about 15 other execs who simply wanted to watch the building burn showed up to oogle at the damage.

It was a total loss. The sprinkler systems had destroyed all electronics in the building. Including the backup sprinklers in the server room.

Thankfully the building was leased and insured. Since the fuse box that caused this was old and hidden, our company took zero blame. The owner of the building is going to be out some money though. A lot of money.

Let’s hope this goes better.

Since then I have returned to my normal duties.

Until last week when I was informed that a new building was leased out for the support staff. I spent all of last week running drops to desks and installing monitor and docking stations to prepare for all of the techs to start working here at the beginning of next week.

Last thing my boss told me before I started this project?

$EVP – Try not to burn the building down this time $ME.

Yikes! That was certainly a crazy and awful work day!

Let’s see how Reddit responded.

This person agrees that Halon is not safe.

Another person shares a part they found funny.

This person has a suggestion.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who was denied a raise for “not being dedicated enough,” but then went on to discover what was really going on behind the scenes.

Another person hopes the building owner has good insurance.

Talk about a total loss! They acted quickly, and it still didn’t help. At least the fire department was there and found the problem, and nobody got hurt.

That was really bad, but it could’ve been worse.